Starving

Some things taste better when you're hungry.  I don't mean poor, starving, emaciated, near to death hungry.  But craving something specific.  Like fresh greens, when the garden is buried under a foot of snow and the lettuce in the grocery store looks like it was grown under a foot of snow.

That's when sorrel tastes the best.  The leaves look somewhat like spinach—green, triangular, smooth.  It has a bit more bite than lettuce.  Bite isn't bad, unless that's the only green in your salad.  If sorrel is more than one third of the salad, my family gets finicky.  Cutting it into small pieces—say, quarter inch strips—helps, so no one gets a big bite of tanginess at once.  Thick salad dressings also help.

Moderation is easier said than done, since sorrel is one of the first plants to green up in the garden, and that's the secret of sorrel.

It’s a hardy, vigorous perennial.  If you start with a hand-sized clump, within a year you'll have a foot clump, and within 3 years, a two foot size clump.  That isn't bad, if you've planned ahead.  The leaves grow almost two feet tall, with flower stalks growing another foot.  The flowers.  May I suggest that you cut or break off the flower stalks unless you want a sorrel meadow?  But in March, that may not be such a bad idea.