The use of wild garlic collected in the forest
The fox tapeworm is a dangerous disease that can be transmitted to humans through the excrement of foxes when they consume wild herbs. This is problematic with wild garlic, as it is eaten raw as a component of herb salads or as a topping on butter and quark bread. However, the risk of ingesting the invisible small eggs of the fox tapeworm is minimized if you wash the wild garlic thoroughly and rub the individual leaves with your hands under hot running water. You should also do this if you have bought wild garlic in potted or already harvested form, since the commercially sold wild garlic does not necessarily come from cultivation on fenced property.
also read
- The consumption of wild garlic: Mixing it up can be dangerous
- Wild garlic for the kitchen: harvest time and interesting facts
- Where does wild garlic grow?
Possibilities for using wild garlic in cooked form
If you want to be on the safe side, you should simply use the wild garlic in cooked form despite a certain loss of flavor. You can do this, for example, with the following types of use:
- Wild garlic gnocchi
- Wild garlic hash browns
- Puff pastry rolls with wild garlic
- Pickled wild garlic buds
Boiling and soaking the not yet blooming wild garlic flower buds also has the advantage that the preserved buds can be kept much longer than fresh wild garlic.
Grow wild garlic safely in your own garden
If your garden is not on the edge of the forest and is surrounded by a garden fence, you can plant wild garlic in your garden by sowing or transplanting whole plants and thus harvest its leaves without being exposed to the fox tapeworm pathogen.
Tips & Tricks
Planting wild garlic in your own garden has the advantage that not only the danger of fox tapeworms can be practically excluded on fenced properties far away from forests. The controlled cultivation in an open space under deciduous trees also minimizes the risk of confusion with poisonous doppelgangers such as autumn croissants, lilies of the valley and Aaron's staff.
