Cowslip Salad

The problem here is the name. "Cowslip" in American cookery and foraging writing of this period almost always means the marsh marigold, Caltha palustris, a buttercup relative — not the English cowslip primrose — and that plant is not safe eaten raw.

• Two different plants, one namePrimula veris, the English cowslip, has flowers long used in wine and conserves. Caltha palustris, the American "cowslip" or marsh marigold, is the plant whose leaves were gathered in spring and cooked like spinach, and cooking the leaves "like spinach" is consistent with that use. The recipe gives no botanical name, so which plant is meant cannot be settled from the text -- "velvety" petals would fit the primrose better -- but if marsh marigold is intended, the scattering of raw petals is where it goes wrong.
• ProtoanemoninMarsh marigold, like other buttercups, contains ranunculin, which converts to protoanemonin when the plant tissue is damaged. It is a blistering irritant to mouth, throat and gut. Traditional practice was to boil the greens through two or three changes of water, which reduces it; nothing in this recipe specifies that, and the flower petals are never heated at all.
• The raw garnish"A scattering of velvety cowslip petals" over a chilled, dressed salad is the specific failure. Whatever the leaves have been through, the blossoms go on uncooked, and uncooked marsh marigold is the part that causes burning and gastric distress.
• Misidentification in the fieldThe rosettes of marsh marigold can be confused in early spring with lesser celandine and with other wetland plants, some of them toxic. A recipe that gives no botanical name and no description of the plant is not adequate foraging instruction.
• Wetland harvestThese greens grow in ditches, stream margins and standing water, so harvest sites may carry agricultural runoff, and greens taken from grazed wet ground have been linked to liver fluke, as watercress has. That is a further reason the old "boil hard, change the water" step was treated as necessary.
• If you want the dishA moulded spinach salad with mayonnaise, egg and paprika-rolled cheese balls is entirely reproducible with spinach. For any wild green, work from a current, botanically specific foraging reference rather than this entry.