Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall would have been proud.

There I was in the garden, having surruptiously crept out of the house armed with gloves and scissors and carrying a plastic bag. The big, old vegetable garden was lying fallow for the winter after everything had been harvested. Except the garden wasn't really fallow. Weeds had sprung to life in the rich soil that had been assiduously worked over during the growing season, providing ideal conditions for them.

Initially I was checking for birch mushrooms under some silver birches planted for that very reason, but was soon diverted by a glimpse of a weed that I had been waiting for. The last time I saw it here, I told my wife D, who disdains them, that I was going to pick it, but the plant mysteriously vanished before that happened. This time I told no-one. In no time the bag was filled with the weed, except this was no ordinary weed.

It was stinging nettles.

Stinging nettles have a long culinary history, having been eaten since Roman times. They have many properties, including being richer in iron than spinach with the equivalent amount of vitamins A and C as well as a good amount of minerals. Herbalists recommend drinking nettle tea for your health, and recent research on nettles shows that they can interfere or block a chemical process in the body that has been linked to prostate disorders. As men age, free-floating testosterone becomes bound to albumin in a process called human sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), removing its bioavailability to the body. This chemical process is now believed to be linked to prostate disorders. In several clinical studies, nettles have demonstrated the ability to block this process which may well explain its documented effectiveness in the treatment of many prostate conditions. Since testosterone is a natural aphrodisiac, and nettles makes more testosterone bioavailable for the body's use by blocking SHBG, this may also explain why nettles have recently been regarded as having aphrodisiac properties.


Another use for nettles is Urtification. This is the process of deliberately stinging the skin with nettles. Roman soldiers, chilled by the cold, often rubbed their feet and hands with nettles to bring back their circulation, whilst convicts were punished by lashing large nettle bushes across their bare backs. Urtification has been used successfully for treating rheumatism and arthritis by tricking the nervous system into overlooking the deeper pain. Some people have even used it for sexual arousal.


The first time I ever tried eating nettles was in a place called Woods Point, an old gold mining town in the sub alpine region to the east of Melbourne. There are plenty of small creeks and disturbed ground through gold mining activities, both of which provide ideal conditions for this plant, Urtica dioica, to grow.

Woods Point was founded on the back of the now closed Morning Star gold mine, one of the richest this state has ever seen, rivaling the fabled Long Tunnel mine at Walhalla. There were several other mines in the district which included the A1 mine a short drive out of Woods Point, which was the last to close. We used to holiday there in a friend's house, which is how we met the two itinerant Swiss, both named Francois. They both worked for the A1 mine and one of them opened a restaurant called Diggers Delight in the others large and rambling house. To avoid confusion, in an Australian touch we called one Frank and the other Francois.

Frank was the best mushroomer I have ever seen. He used to forage far and wide and come back with an incredible array. One time we went for morels, Frank was up at first light and came back with an armful of them, from spots that no-one knew about, including him. We spent weekends driving around in the morel season, and it was largely due to Frank that we found the spots we did.

One of the other things that Frank picked on his rambles was stinging nettles, which was how I first tried them, served in a soup in the restaurant. It's funny, I can't actually remember the taste of them, only that I really liked the soup. Since then, nettles have been rather hard to come by. Until I saw them growing in my sister-in-law's garden. Well now I had a whole bag of them, and what I wanted to try was a nettle risotto I saw prepared by Armando on one of Neil Perry's shows.

Nettle Risotto

nettle leaves, stripped from the stalk, about a medium pot full
1 onion, finely chopped
100 ml (4 oz) olive oil
2 cups risotto rice (we used Ferron's Vialone Nano)
3 l (6.5 p) chicken stock, simmering on stove
salt & pepper
25 g (1 oz) butter
25 g (1 oz) parmesan cheese - optional

Soften the onions in the olive oil, then add the nettle leaves and cook until they collapse. Add the rice and saute for another two minutes. Add a ladleful of stock and stir until absorbed, then keep adding stock a ladleful at a time, continually stirring until the rice is cooked. If you run out of stock add some boiling water. Season and stir in butter and cheese if using and serve.

The reason the cheese is optional is that it overwhelms the delicate taste of the nettles. What you will have is a beautiful lime green risotto streaked with the darker leaves. It's delicious.