Eating the weeds

It's a green fleshy plant with flat stems and tiny yellow flowers.  For years it has been a nameless, inoffensive weed that I have carefully pulled out.  Then a friend offered me a plant growing in a pot and told me she learned to eat it in Assyria as a girl.  It looked suspiciously like the weed growing between the pavers and in my gravel paths. But she told me they called it 'propina' and used it in salads, soups and dips. I tried some of her soup and and it was, as she promised, quite tasty. 

So I did some investigating.  I discovered that it was my backyard weed and was indeed edible.  Known in Europe as 'Purslane', (Portulaca oleracea) it has been eaten for centuries.

I no longer pull out this weed and regard it with a new respect. I have found that if allowed to thrive in a pot or in the vegetable garden it becomes thick and lush.  I now have a recipe ready and await my first crop. 

I know there are other edible 'weeds' in the garden worth trying too.  One of my projects for this year is to try some of them.