weired one about Cow Parsley
 

OK come on when did you last have you Cow Parsley knowledge tested?
Well here goes, yesterday while walking my dog, at the edge of my Village (yes what do the do for an idiot when i'm on holiday?) I saw 3 African looking guys in a field carrying huge white fertilizer type poly sacks and were picking the heads off the cow parsley in the field
now point
1, there is no large imigrant population where I live so these guys had come a distance to pick what is a common hedge row/grassland weed
2, they had come equipped to pick as much as the could
3, what could they want it for?, it's eddible but its not great tasting nor very nutricious
4, it is possibly a mosquito repellent but mossers aren't a major prob. in rural staffs.!
not a racist nor anti immigrant rant, I am just curious as to what these guys were up to,so any suggestions?
OK I could have/should have asked them but as the land owner is very protective of his grassland crop so entering that particular field, if spotted will get you a forceful "get orf moi land" red faced rant, and would you have faced up to 3 "strangers in a field"?

:smilies0966:

I bet they were picking it to eat. The stalks taste a bit like a cross between aniseed and liquorice, a kind of flavour often used in African cooking.

You have to be 110% sure what your picking cow parsley and not hemlock, which looks very similar and is deadly. I hope they know what they're doing! (Hemlock flowers slightly later, is a bit taller and has tiny purple spots on the stalks)

I even have a recipe for pickled cow parsley stems somewhere... ;)

but they were picking flower heads not stems, just been out for a walk again and field is still quite full of cow parsley so they were probably told to "get orf moi laaaand"
a guy I work with says the Asian women pick it down by the river in Burton, almost certainly something we have lost/forgotten about since the advent of the supermarket

well lets see one english pound per gram....
 

http://www.wildflower.org.uk/cow-parsley-seeds.html

Yep if your got no other income that is viable.

In Australia people pick Rhodes grass seed. Lot of work but it does actually pay bills.

well as cow parsley is right now in full flower, they weren't picking seeds just yet

Making wine:120::ebay:

think there is a herbal drink made from boiling up the flowerheads

I reckon they have mistook it for Elderflower, as it's wine season for these right now. But you don't need bags of the stuff, about a litre of heads per gallon of wine.

the lane by which they must have entered the field is an A1 spot for picking elder flowers or a bit later berries for wine making