Greater burdock
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 Greater Burdock
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| Arctium lappa L. |
Greater burdock, Edible burdock, or Lappa Burdock is a biennial of the Arctium (burdock) genus in the Asteraceae family, cultivated in gardens for its root used as a vegetable.
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[edit] Description
Greater Burdock is rather tall, reaching as much as 2 metres. It has large, alternating, cordiform leaves that have a long petiole and are pubescent on the underside.
The flowers are purple and grouped in globular capitula, united in clusters. They appear in mid-summer. The capitula are surrounded by an involucre made out of many bracts, each curving to form a hook, allowing them to be carried long distances on the fur of animals. The fruits are achenes; they are long, compressed, with short pappuses.
The fleshy tap-root reaches a length of 50 cm.
[edit] Origin and distribution
This species is native to the temperate regions of the old world, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and from the British Isles through Russia, and the Middle East to China and Japan, including India. It is naturalized almost everywhere and is usually found in disturbed areas, especially in soil rich in nitrogen. It is commonly cultivated in Japan where it gives its name to a particular construction technique, burdock piling.
[edit] Cultivation
It prefers a fresh, worked soil, rich in humus, and should be positioned in full sunlight. Burdock is very reactive to nitrogen fertilizer. Propagation is achieved through direct sowing the seeds midsummer. The harvest occurs three to four months after the seeding until late autumn, when the roots become too fibrous.
[edit] Culinary use
Greater burdock was used during the Middle Ages as a vegetable, but now it is rarely used, with the exception of Japan where is called gobō (牛蒡 or ゴボウ), Italy, and Portugal, where it is known as bardana. Plants are cultivated for their slender roots, which can grow about 1 meter long and 2 cm across.
Immature flower stalks may also be harvested in late spring, before flowers appear. The taste resembles that of artichoke, to which the burdock is related.
In the second half of the 20th century, burdock achieved international recognition for its culinary use due to the increasing popularity of the macrobiotic diet, which advocates its consumption. The root contains a fair amount of gobō dietary fiber (GDF, 6g per 100g), calcium, potassium, amino acids,[1] and is low calorie. It contains polyphenols that causes darkened surface and muddy harshness by formation of tannin-iron complexes.
The root is very crisp and has a sweet, mild, and pungent flavor with a little muddy harshness that can be reduced by soaking julienned/shredded roots in water for five to ten minutes. The harshness shows excellent harmonization with pork in miso soup (tonjiru) and takikomi gohan (a Japanese-style pilaf).
A popular Japanese dish is kinpira gobō, julienned or shredded burdock root and carrot, braised with soy sauce, sugar, mirin and/or sake, and sesame oil. Another is burdock makizushi (rolled sushi filled with pickled burdock root; the burdock root is often artificially colored orange to resemble a carrot). In Kyoto, gobō can also be found as a snack food similar to potato chips. The root is eaten cooked and the young sprout can be eaten just like asparagus.
[edit] Use in traditional medicine
Folk herbalists consider dried burdock to be a diuretic, diaphoretic, and a blood purifying agent. The seeds of greater burdock are used in traditional Chinese medicine, under the name niupangzi (Chinese: 牛蒡子; pinyin: niúpángzi; some dictionaries list the Chinese as just 牛蒡 niúbàng.)
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