A la Nebuchadnezzar

Don't complain about the weeds in your garden. Eat them. There is nothing quite like a tossed weed salad, preceded by an entree of burdock stems in batter, and topped off by cattail-pollen pancakes.

Such was the straight-faced advice sent out last week by the Department of Agri culture. The department listed wild plants which can be put to a "useful purpose": lamb's-quarters, plantain, poke, purslane, wild chicory, dock. They all taste good with vinegar or cooked in bacon fat, said the department; they contain vitamins A and B, and iron.

From the New York State College of Agriculture came a 32-page pamphlet of recipes and menus, prodigal with suggestions. The list of edible weeds was enthusiastically expanded: milkweed, stinging nettle, amaranth pigweed, sow thistle, skunk cabbage ("cooking reduces offen-siveness"), toothwort, hog peanut, yellow goatsbeard, spatterdock.

To this advice many a Victory gardener said "Hmmm," thoughtfully purchased another packet of lettuce seeds.

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