Sweet and beautiful red clover

One of the questions a plant-based offgrider needs to answer in every season is: where is the sugar? I'm summer it's easy, we all know it's in the fruits, but how much do we know about every other season? Where can we get decent amounts of energy in fall, winter and spring? If we don't want to kill any animals or have to go buy stuff every time we get hungry, it's necessary to dive into this knowledge.

In the quest for natural sugars, I've found that each season (or segment of the season) has at least one plant that offers something that can make a starving soul feel highly grateful to run into. Fall will still have fruits and also offers good roots, winter is all about roots, spring the energy is found in leaves and flowers, and summer is one again about fruits.

Early into spring we can find a nice amount of nectar in dandelion flowers, but as we move closer to summer, their numbers decrease. It's then when the protagonist of this post comes to save the day (or weeks).

My mother always said that as a child, she and the other children would pick clover flowers and suck on the lower end to enjoy the sweet nectar. I had tried doing this and it was nice, but honestly, I never imagined I would ever eat clover flowers for lunch.

Today, I'm glad I did because I had seriously been missing out. How is it that this isn't talked about more often and they haven't been in integrated into our everyday lives? These flowers are super sweet, and one cooked have an excellent texture to go along with an by dish.

On this occasion I cooked them with calafate, our local blueberry, curly dock, and some truly free-chicken eggs (certified by my own two eyes).

A friend told me she had tried it and didn't find anything good about the taste. I showed here pictures and videos of how it grows here and she realized the one she tasted was very dry and and small. Look for places that have nice, lush and green grass, with big colorful flowers for some super sweet and joyful clovers 😁

Red clover can be very beautiful when taken care of and grow surprisingly tall.

A good place to forage:

Red clover is very easy to identify, it's actually one of the easiest for beginner foragers. The flower is in fact a rossette of many littler flowers which you can pick apart. They go from a light pink to magenta color on the top and get whiter as you approach the bottom

The three leaves of course, that's what clover is known for, and why it's a sign of luck to find it with for leaves.

Red clover is a nutritious forage, rich in protein (15-27% DM), minerals and soluble carbohydrates. Crude protein decreases with maturity, from 22% to 16% DM between the vegetative stage and the end of bloom for a French red clover, while NDF increases from 40% to 51%. Later cuts may contain more protein than the first and second ones (INRA, 2007.

Now get out there and try some delicious red clover!