Pfälzerwald Salat: or, Am I Supposed to Eat That?

Ooh, pretty bouquet! Wait, am I supposed to eat that?

I like to try new things to eat, as long as it's not meat (there are many, many ways that meat adventures can go wrong, especially if one doesn't like meat anyway) or it's not super spicy hot (I can tolerate medium salsa, as a point of reference).

I saw what I think was labeled as Pfälzerwald Salat, or maybe it was Wald Salat, or something like that. Either way, it had the word "Salat" in it, which is salad, and it was next to a bin of what I definitely know is salad. That's not meat or super spicy so it was fair game for me to try. Plus, it was rather interesting looking; it looked almost like weeds (erm, wild greens) and some flowers. I've heard that some flowers are edible and this was next to regular salad so I was 99.9% sure it was edible for humans. This came from the forest around here, or at least that's what I thought, so I bought some.

It hung out in my fridge for a while until I bought some salad dressing. It dawned on me: does one put salad dressing on flowers? What kind should be used? Before I poured dressing on it, I thought I should try it plain first. What if it doesn't need dressing?

As I was debating this, I thought that it really didn't look like salad; again, it looked like flowers and weeds. What if I was wrong? What if this was meant for pet bunnies or something? Why would the farmer have put it by the regular people salad then? Is there something that Germans know that I don't?

My curiosity and lack of better judgment took ahold of me. I grabbed a leaf and took a tentative bite. It was bitter. I was wondering if I should call the poison center. Then I thought I should try one of the flowers (so smart, aren't I?). I may as well go down kicking. It really didn't taste like much. I wondered again if I had been sold rabbit food. I then wondered if maybe the bitter weed thing was a mustard green or whatever else it was that I skimmed over the description of in the hippie books I read on foraging wild plants.

I had enough. I dumped the salad in the trash. Some day, I will find out if this was actually a salad; if I ate it incorrectly and that's why it didn't taste good; or if I narrowly avoided being poisoned by rabbit food.