From Yard to Table: A Seattle Forager Chows Down on Weeds

By Rachel Belle

Listen to Weed Salad: It’s What’s For Dinner

For most people, picking weeds is a chore, but to Seattle’s Melany Vorass, it’s a harvest.

To use a fancy term, Melany is an urban forager. To put it in my words, Melany Vorass is a lady who makes salads and stir fries out of the weeds and plants that grow naturally in her yard. Standing on the sidewalk outside her typical Wallingford home, you’d never know that she has a little urban farm in the backyard. But step out the back door and you’ll find clucking chickens and a handful of milking goats that Melany uses to make cheese and yogurt. She also has a bee hive up on the roof.

Melany says her family doesn’t really buy any vegetables, partly because of her big garden and partly because of the foraging she does in her own yard. She invited me over to her lawn turned salad bar for a little snack.

“This is called cat’s ear,” she says handing me a leaf. “You could use this in salad or you can steam it. Most of the season this has no bitterness whatsoever, it’s much milder than dandelion.”

Eating yard fresh plants saves Melany and her family money, it’s good for the environment, it’s good for her health, and it reassures her to know that she could survive if there was ever a natural disaster that cut off the food supply. Fifty percent of her diet is made up of things she’s foraged from her yard, her neighbor’s yards, or some parks.

“People totally think I’m crazy! When we first started inviting friends over to have dandelion salads, there was a lot of fear and trepidation at putting that first bite in their mouths. But, increasingly, I think that’s going away with travel shows like No Reservations and Bizarre Foods. When we look at how the rest of the globe eats and how abundant this natural system is…I just think it’s really eye opening for people.”

Melany wants to make it clear that she and her husband are not crazy hippies eating bowlfuls of lawn clippings while dousing themselves in patchouli.

“We’re fairly conventional in most other aspects of our lives. I think when most people think of this weed gathering, they think of someone in wool socks and Birkenstocks who doesn’t shave her legs and armpits and doesn’t wear makeup. I defy that stereotype!”

It’s true: I can attest that Melany was wearing eye shadow! Now before you roll your eyes at the Seattleness of having backyard chickens or eating dandelion salads, know that Melany is not a purist, which makes her foraging and eating habits endearing and interesting, as opposed to militant and strange.

“I will eat a Hostess something and I’m kind of addicted to Diet Coke,” she laughs. “So I’m not completely married to this. But the reason we’re trying to do it is just to show ourselves that it can be done. You don’t have to rely on factory farming, you don’t have to be dictated to on where your food comes from.”

If you still can’t stomach the idea of yard salad, I have three words for you: garlic, butter and salt. That’s Melany’s secret weapon for making Nipple Wart taste delicious.