In message , anton
writes

Dunno, but around this time of year you can cook 'em as a nice soup:
[snip]

You can also make a very refreshing summer drink from them: Nettle Beer.

Nettle Beer Recipe

Ingredients
2lb young nettle tops
1 gallon of water
8oz of sugar
0.25oz of fresh yeast
small piece of toast
0.25oz of ground ginger

Method
Boil the nettle tops in the water for half an hour. Strain and add
sugar, stirring to dissolve. Also stir in the ginger. Pour mixture into
a sterile container. Spread the yeast onto the toast and float on the
surface of the nettle liquid. Cover and leave for 3 days. Strain again
and put into clean, strong screw top beer bottles. This can be drunk
after 48 hours.


Taken from:


http://www.greenchronicle.com/recipes/nettle_beer.htm



This is similar to the recipe my mother used, back in the 50s and 60s,
but there are variations. I don't recall the use of so much ginger, and
have made it myself with much less.

--
David D Stretch: Stoke-on-Trent, UK. For email remove spaces from the following
line:
d d stretch @ mugwort . demon . co . u k