A peppery, mustard-family wild green that grows in fields and along streams, gathered as one of the very first greens of the mountain spring. Eaten raw in salads or cooked down like other greens — sharp, vitamin-packed, and free.
Walking the fields and creek banks for the first creasy greens of spring was a cherished mountain tradition, and Black Appalachian families gathered them as free, nutrient-rich food when the garden was bare. Mess-of-creasies suppers marked the turn of the season in the hollows.
Creasy greens (a wild upland cress) are extraordinarily nutrient-dense — high in vitamins A, C, and K, iron, and calcium, plus the cancer-protective glucosinolates of the mustard family that the body converts to sulforaphane-class compounds. As one of the first wild greens of spring, they delivered a free burst of vitamins after a winter of preserved food. Pound for pound, few cultivated greens match them.
Gather young creasy greens before they flower. Wash well, then eat raw in a sharp salad or cook them down like turnip greens with a little seasoning. They are peppery and assertive — a little goes a long way raw, and cooking mellows the bite.
Free, no account needed to ask.