Garlic Mustard

Spicy garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) can be seen growing unfazed in the snow all winter long! Heat is the medicine of this plant, whose young leaves can be blended with olive oil and pine nuts into pesto, and whose root can be grated into a horseradish substitute. You can feel garlic mustard enter the sinuses with a slightly sweet, slightly acrid, and decidedly spicy taste which gets more bitter as the weather warms. Like the onion family plants after which it is named, garlic mustard has been also used topically as a chest poultice for upper respiratory infections. Don't hold back while picking it! - it's been called invasive in the Northeast region.