Lepidium virginicum — the little roadside weed whose leaves and green seed pods taste like black pepper. Free seasoning for people who couldn't always buy it, and a peppery spring green.
Peppergrass is poor-folks' pepper — when a tin of black pepper cost money the family didn't have, a child could be sent to strip a handful of pungent green pods from the yard's edge. It is a small, vivid example of how Black Southern households made the roadside into a spice rack.
Another wild mustard-family green rich in vitamin C and the sulfur glucosinolates that give it its pepper bite and its detoxification chemistry. Folk use treated it as a digestive stimulant and a mild spring tonic. The green seed pods were dried and ground as a pepper substitute, putting trace minerals and antioxidants on the plate of families who couldn't always afford store spices.
Young basal leaves are eaten raw in salads or wilted; the green seed pods are stripped from the stalk and used fresh or dried as a peppery seasoning. Add late in cooking — like all cresses the heat and vitamin C fade with prolonged heat.
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