Episode 16: Foodie Favorites & Nature's Booby Trap Thistle

Apr 19

Hello and welcome back to another episode of rooted! This week we are covering a plant that is often a bit under-appreciated due to it’s prickly nature- thistle

To start, let’s dig in to the basic facts and features. Thistles are a part of the aster family, so they are related to daisies, sunflowers, and all kinds of other delightful flowers!

Thistles aren’t actually just one plant, but a number of different plants all belonging to the Cardueae tribe.

For those unfamiliar, tribes are essentially the classification between family and genus- so it’s a little more specific than family, but not quite as drilled down as specific genus. This is an important sub-section for the Aster family, as it is a MASSIVE family with a lot of different and unique plants, so it helps us to just break down those big families a little easier.

Thistles are characterized by their super-spiky leaves and stems, and their very specific flower shape- most of them are kind of shaped like cups at the base, with a bunch of tiny little spikes that kind of poof out like jazz hands…and if you were to rip that flower open, you would find that inside they are filled with this light fluffy stuff called thistle down, which helps them when they are ready to spread their seeds!

Thistle- especially the biannual variety, is a really important plant in natural landscapes, as it provides a vital source of pollen for bees AND fritillary butterflies, but also helps to give homes for overwintering bugs, and provides lots of tasty seeds for birds like goldfinches, and plenty of warm, fluffy down to line their nests with! The tall Cirsium altissimum, or roadside thistle is also a super important source of food for the monarch butterfly on it’s migration, as it is reliably found across north america.

While it is really important for those guys, it can also cause a few problems if left completely unchecked in areas it isn’t supposed to be! Because it has a tendency to grow into unruly pointy thickets, it tends to not be a favorite for livestock- after all, the whole point of the thistle GROWING points WAS to stop it from being munched on. Because of that, and the fact that it can be toxic, it needs to be cleaned out of areas where wildlife is grazing.

As a fun fact, one method we have to try and control invasive thistle is to literally just release a bunch of weevils at it! They love to munch on them, which is a really handy way to get rid of the plants we don't like…but one problem is that they aren’t picky about the kind of thistle they like to eat, so sometimes they end up eating the good thistle too…which is why we have to be careful about where we dump our weevils.

The duality of being both a wonderful source of food AND a literal pain in the ass is part of the Thistles charm, even in human history!

For instance, thistle became the national symbol of Scotland due to its role in helping the scot’s win a war!

Picture it- the year is 1263 and it’s a brisk, bleak october day in scotland. The norwegians have decided they would like your land to be THEIR land, and they are honestly being pretty rude and aggressive about it. You’ve been fighting them off for a while now, but it’s getting to be pretty exhausting. You need a win. You decide to call it a night early, get your beauty rest, and fight another day tomorrow.

Excited to try a new strategy, the norsemen decide to take advantage of your selfcare, because they want to STAY TOXIC.

They decide that in the cover of nightfall they will tiptoe into your camp, and give you the worst surprise of your life…talk about killing the vibe. However, what they don’t know is that Scotland has its very own natural booby traps….you don’t even HAVE to go all “Home Alone” in your camp, mother earth has done it for you.

The norsemen slip off their shoes, because they think being barefoot will make them sneakier somehow, (and also i'm assuming because it makes for a better story back home-)

The air is thick with ominous tension and a dreadful foot smell- this is the moment.

As they are slowly tiptoeing across the field towards camp, one of the men full on bare-foot stomps a thistle- and that shit HURTS. Caught off guard, he lets out a loud “Oizys”! and wakes up everyone in the area- you rush to pull on your shoes because you aren’t an idiot, and you fight for your land.

The norsemen, embarrassed to be bested by a freaking plant, decide they should just go home after yet another loss, and this helps to finally turn the tides in your favor. Eventually, they decide to leave you alone altogether, and you finally live in peace for a bit- all thanks to a weed you ALSO used to think was kind of a shit.

And to thank it for it’s help, you make it a national symbol, and decide to celebrate it for the tiny little prick it is- refusing to give up, even when the odds are stacked against it.

But thistle is and has always been so much more than a symbol of strength, and we have relied on it for CENTURIES for food, medicine, and so much more.

In food, the most obvious application is probably honey, as it is a VERY popular and significant food source for bees, and therefore is a really easy plant to use for the all-the-rage, SINGLE SOURCE honey. Single source honey from the star thistle is said to have a very light floral taste, is a rich golden color with a thick but light consistency. It also apparently smells like almonds, and costs an average of about $2.61 per pound wholesale (buying in quantities of 10,000 pounds) according to the national honey report of Feb. 2023…which is a real thing I just learned about and am newly obsessed with. It’ll be in the show notes if you’d like to join me in the madness.

Anyway, at that price, the average cost you would expect to pay at the store keeping in mind the average cost of natural honey is about $1 an oz for 12 oz with 30-40% markup is about $15 dollars compared to the the average cost of about $7 for a standard grade a organic honey. So definitely a lot more expensive than the normal stuff, but maybe worth it if you really enjoy honey.

It’s not just honey that thistle can make extravagant and budget-busting! It;s also a very important part of making the famous “Serra da Estrela” cheese of portugal…

So basically, thistle- specifically the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) thistle is a VERY good option for making a vegetable rennet called, which is essentially what causes the milk to curdle and separate into curds and whey, which talented cheesemakers then turn into cheese. This rennet is typically added to sheeps milk to make cheese that is a little less consistent than those made with animal rennet, but also a bit more acidic and light, with a thicker bite.

According to thistle-rennet fans, part of the fun is the inconsistency- due to it’s shorter aging period (most cheese made with thistle rennet is only aged 3 months) the flavor profile from cheese to cheese can vary widely, making it rare to experience the same flavor twice, even from the same cheese maker!

The serra de estrela is probably the best known cheese that consistently uses thistle rennet. It’s a sheep's milk cheese from the Serra de estrela region of Portugal, and is made with only the milk of Bordaleira sheep. What makes it stand out is the rich, almost butter-y curd of the milk, which is then made by hand into a sort of dough that then ages into a cheese. Said to have a slightly sour, creamy taste with a very soft texture. The cheese costs about $32 a pound- about $26 more than a pound of cheddar.

In addition to cheese and honey, Artichokes are another famous food that comes from thistles…mostly because it is one! So if you ever want to make a VERY expensive artichoke dip, just know you could technically make the whole thing out of thistles and it would be the HEIGHT of artichoke dip culture…

Now that you know how to make a VERY fancy charcuterie board to heal your soul, let's talk about how thistle was used to heal the rest of our bodies- that’s right, it's time to talk medicine…

For honestly as long as we have had history, we have been using thistle as a medicine! Most notably we have been using milk thistle, or Silybum marianum, which is prized for it’s high concentration of silymarin, which is said to have antiviral, antibacterial, and anti inflammatory properties.

In ancient times, people in the middle east used milk thistle to treat anything from liver disease to decreased breast milk tradition, and relied on it heavily as an addition to most medicines.

In the Medieval and early modern time periods, thistle was used to promote - hair growth, and treat jaundice, plague, cancer sores, and even vertigo, which begs the question- is THIS the OG perelli’s miracle elixir? I think it could be, and I am devastated that more Victorian orphan children didn’t sing songs about it.

Today we still see thistle being used as a medical supplement, but not quite as widely, and without a ton of hard evidence to back up some of the more radical claims of it fighting liver disease and cancer. While it hasn't been completely ruled out, a lot more research is needed before we can know for sure how to best use it.

One thing it is being used for is in pharmaceuticals, especially in the drug Silibinin, which is used to help treat toxic liver damage and as a part of managing cirrhosis and hepatitis. This works because silibinin is a flavonoid that helps to not only fight free radicals, but also has hepatoprotective properties that protect the liver cells from further damage .

In less fancy pants terms, silibinin slips into your system, and helps to knock out the nasty little guys that sneak into your cells and wreak all kinds of havoc by essentially throwing them out and locking the door behind them.

Milk thistle is still a popular supplement for new moms, as it has been shown to help mothers produce more breast milk, and is also a popular additive to tinctures and other natural medicines due to it’s long history as an important wild-foraged source of nutrients and medicine.

While thistle is not a miracle cure, I hope learning a bit more about it has inspired you to at least keep an eye out for this poky little friend, and to keep an open mind about the plants growing natively around you! Just because something can be a little bit spiny and hard to appreciate at first, doesn't necessarily mean it should be completely uprooted and banished.

Take a little time to learn about your native thistles, and the ways they are actively contributing to the ecosystem around you- you might be surprised to know how much they are actually doing for pollinator AND local artisans ….normally this is the part where I ask you to kiss their heads for me, but in this case I would ask you to instead just give it an acknowledging nod- avoiding any spikes or or weevils, and respecting the thistles boundaries.

Thanks so much for listening! I’ll come at you with another episode next week, but in the meantime, I hope you have a lovely week, and eat as much charcuterie as your heart desires.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thistle

https://www.britannica.com/plant/thistle

https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5410130.pdf

https://plants.usda.gov/home/classification/33539

https://www.sleepingbearfarms.com/about-star-thistle-honey/

https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvmhoney.pdf

https://www.transceltic.com/blog/battle-of-largs-2nd-october-1263-and-scottish-thistle-national

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3687700

https://www.visitscotland.com/inspiration/culture/thistle

https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-milk-thistle/art-20362885

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/milk-thistle