Cow Parsley - childhood memories

I was driving home from shopping this morning and taking a short cut down a narrow country lane when I decided to stop and look around at some of the beautiful blossoms and flowers on show in our hedgerows. There were a few common ones like the white as well as the pink hawthorn, buttercups, red campion and of course cow parsley as well as others which I don't know the names of and will research to identify them.

It seems that cow parsley has different names in different parts of the country. Apparently it is called cow mumbles in Suffolk and in Rutland where I grew up we called it Kek. But I think the most elegant version of its name is Queen Anne's Lace. When I was a child living in the countryside it used to grow in abundance and I remember it used to seem like it grew so tall. When the flowers died off and the stem was all brittle and dry, once we realised they were hollow we used to snap them off and use them as peashooters, though you had to make sure they were not home to earwigs or another insects first. I suppose people have the perception that it is just a weed but when you actually stop and look at the delicate flowers you see a beauty that you have never noticed before. I have included a couple of pictures I took today, and you will be surprised to see that the collective flower heads almost look like a snowflake formation and the closeup shows the detail in each petal that we just brush past as something we have seen a hundred times over. I must admit I was surprised at how pretty cow parsley truly is and no wonder that it is used by some florists as a filler in their arrangements.

Apparently in years gone by it has been use as a contraceptive and other treatments and there are recipes for pickling the stems or using the leaves and flowers. However, i am not going to include one this time as you need to very careful and be 100% sure that you are dealing with cow parsley rather that it's two similar companions hemlock, which is very poisonous and fools parsley which is also poisonous.

So this time I shall give the free food option a wide berth and just admire its delicate beauty instead.

If you would like to learn more about my exploits foraging for free wild food and the recipes I have cooked with my herbs and grow your own then please have a look at some of my other posts :)

Closeup of Cow Parsley

Snowflake like formation of Cow Parsley