Dandelion, for us and the bees

Today I would like to tell you about dandelion.

This morning I was walking in my garden, here in Switzerland, unfortunately, it hasn't rained for months, so although spring has begun, when nature should be luxuriant and green, the meadows are very dry and the vegetation is in difficulty.
Dandelion, on the other hand, does not seem to suffer from this situation and covers our lawns with its wonderful yellow flowers, which are so loved by bees. I photographed for you these three very hardworking bees, with their legs full of nectar, I wonder how they still manage to fly.

Once dandelion was used a lot in kitchens, I remember how my grandmother loved using it to prepare salads, soups or stuffing her excellent tortellini. My grandmother lived in Italy, and food is really good there!
Indeed, in the banquets of the ancient Romans, dandelions or wild chicory were often served in abundance between meals during the lucullian banquets, due to its digestive and protective properties for the liver.

Nowadays, dandelions are hardly used in cooking anymore, due to their rather bitter taste, and people prefer to buy salad at the supermarket, which, following various cultivation changes, is more pleasant to the taste. This is a real shame as, like all wild herbs, dandelion has many more nutrients. For example: "compared to lettuce dandelion contains

• triple the amount of protein, fiber and carbohydrates
• 14 times more calcium
• 10 times more iron
• more than four times the magnesium and zinc
• triple the potassium
• 6 times more copper
• 13 times more vitamin C" ^Source

That's why I eat it often, having anemia problems, it helps me a lot.

If you also live in areas where dandelions grow wild in abundance, I recommend that you take a nice walk every now and then and pick it up fresh, and then use it in salads, soups, omelets, risottos, or any other dish recommended by your imagination. If used together with other foods, the bitter taste is much less noticeable, indeed it is even pleasant.

Today we eat dandelion very finely chopped in salads, while the flowers, also edible, we prefer to leave them to the bees.

Thanks for reading me, I hope you found some interesting ideas in my post.
I took the pictures with my iPhone 12