Nasturtiums

Most people don't realise that Water Cress is actually a member of the Nasturtium family and therefore closely related to the trailing garden plant (Nasturtium) that has colourful flowers followed by white berries. Water Cress (Nasturtium Officienale Aquaticum) is a European aquatic marsh plant that can easily become a weed when introduced to a natural water course as has happened in North America. It is rarely grown by gardeners in this country any more, because it is said that it should have clean running water, but really this is only necessary from a health point of view. In times gone by, water cress was grown by the gardeners of large country houses in the patches of waste land, where the sewage from the houses was tipped, as it liked the wet conditions and benefited from all the extra nutrients in the sewage.

The leaves of water cress may not look particularly nutritious, but they are rich in vitamins and minerals and have some medicinal qualities as they are said to alleviate severe headaches.

Most people in the U.K. simply treat Water Cress as another type of Lettuce leaf and mix it in with their salads, but other cultures use it more in cooked dishes such as is done in Asia.

Water Cress soup can sometimes be seen on menus in restaurants and for something rather different water cress can be sautéed in butter. Perhaps the most popular way of using water cress in the U.K. is to chop it and mix it into mashed potatoes and sauces for a bit of added flavour and colour.

The ornamental variety of Nasturtium is often seen on sale in Garden Centres for bedding displays as it is a colourful trailing plant ideal for tumbling over rocks. As a child I often ate some of the white, peppery berries, that the plants in our garden produced, but it is not to be recommended, because nature usually makes things that are bad for us, taste unpleasant, often giving us a burning sensation in our mouths to discourage us from eating them.

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