Ecoutez Chassé: an audio tour in the Baarsjes
As part of de Baarsjes art month throughout June-October 2009, an audio tour by theatre-maker Wieky de Boer, Ecoutez Chassé, will lead audiences on an exploration through the streets of the Baarsjes, an urban district in Amsterdam West. The tour involves a sonic collage of different anecdotes and perspectives of the district through the eyes of people living or working in the neighbourhood from a film location scout, a state architect to an urbanibalist.
The urbanibalist part of the tour is a recorded-interview stroll (in Dutch) between de Baarsjesweg and the Kostverlorenvaart, one of Amsterdam’s busiest canals. From June 2009 onwards, people can collect an mp3 player, a set of headphones and a map to follow the same steps and maybe discover the same weensy weeds we encountered while making the recording of the walk commentary. The weeds found between the pavement tiles and canal walls were mostly edible and some had specific ‘urbanopathic’ properties. Some of the weeds we encountered were:
Wall pepper (Sedum acre) — growing like little carpets with succelent leaves and yellow flowers between the rim of the pavement and the canal embankment — this hardy plant is perfectly edible, though in small doses (has numbing effect otherwise). It can be cooked or eaten raw (though anything raw is not from recommended from this location). Dry the leaves and pulverise them to a fine ground powder to use as a very piquant spicey seasoning.
Pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea) — a familly of the chamomile family with all the same properties. The pine-cone shaped greeny-yellowy flower buds are intensely fragrant and smell of a very ripe, cloyingly sweet pineapple. We tested some out on a duck passing-by. He liked it enormously and pretty soon all duck friends gathered to gorge on the aromatic urban florets.
Common Sow thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) — an invasive species, loved by swine. Young shoots are edible and dieuretic. Cutting the stem produces a milky latex-containing sap. This sap was used as a chewing gum in some Maori cultures.
Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) — this is one very common city inhabitant. Growing everywhere along footpaths, bicycle lock-up points. Characterised by it’s little heart or purse shaped seed pods and long stem with little bunch of pert white flowers. The leaves at the base of the plant are medicinal, decreasing blood pressure and a blood purifyer.
Chickweed (Stellaria media) — the ABC of weeds (rich in vitamins A,B & C), can be used as a poultice for wounds. This low-lying weed blankets abandoned garden zones and grows just about anywhere between mortar and brick.
Update! After Ecoutez Chassé ran its successful pilot term, the local city council (De Baarsjes) decided not to include the edible weed part in the definitive audio tour. This is because they think it would taint the image of the De Baarsjes and, over the last years, have been trying to clean-up De Baarsjes by eradicating any ‘plants growing in the wrong place’ — discouraging any kind of spontaneous plant life from growing along the canals and between the pavements.