Column: Spirituality, "Wholly Communion"

I’ve been eating dock again for a couple weeks now. My pickings ended last fall with the first hard frost, but now, the plants are in the flush of spring growth. This is when dock is at its best; even large leaves are tender and tasty.

Let me introduce you more formally, though you’ve likely seen dock all your life. That somewhat coarse-leaved, dark green, bunchy weed by the road or in the unmowed lot? The one that will set a warm brown seed head on a stalk about thigh-high that will nod in the winds of second summer? That’s curly dock, Rumex crispus. It’s one of many Eurasian imports to the North American environment, brought accidentally, or perhaps purposefully, by European settlers. Buckwheat and sorrel are relatives. The leaves are long, spear-head shaped, and are arranged alternately on the stalk which arises from a basal rosette.

As the season warms, they’ll turn tough and bitter, but now, they’re good to eat. (The cooler temperatures of fall will bring a second, shorter harvest.) To appreciate it, you have to savor a slightly astringent, sour tang (think spinach) and mucilaginous character (like okra), but that takes in a potentially large set of likers.

I usually cook it with potatoes and onions as the foundation for a breakfast frittata. Dock’s character contributes something I find satisfying. But that’s not the only reason I forage dock.

I eat dock because I’m cheap. I love getting something good for nothing more than the labor of bending over to gather it. A nicer term for this tendency would be “frugal.” That’s a word with an interesting history: It’s a sibling to “fruit,” which leads back to a proto-Indo-European root that means “to enjoy.” Languages demonstrate a weird wisdom sometimes. I hear us telling ourselves we enjoy best what we take in moderation.

But frugality alone might not be enough to send me out with scissors to snip off a leaf or two from each plant in the patch down the hill. I’m moved by the notion that Mother Earth offers to nourish me with what springs from the soil where I live. When I take and eat the gift of this particular place, something of its life inhabits mine. If we are not quite made one, at least the distance between my conscious, subjective self and the supposedly inanimate ground narrows.

You might think to try it, too. In late May to early June, the wild blackberries that grow on the riprap below the River Walk in Cape will ripen. They taste even better than dock. Please take care to leave a few for the birds.

The Reverend Doug Job does interim ministry for congregations in transition and keeps good memories and friends made while serving a church in Cape. He's grateful to live for now in Hannibal, Mo., a short stroll from a ravine with a thriving stand of dock. You may share your favorites to forage with him at revdarkwater@gmail.com.