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Cojak |
AT 12 yrs old I was convinced grass would be just as good as 'greens' if you cooked it and added bacon grease. It was not good. Then I got to wondering why cows and horses at it???? 
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1/1/16 8:36 pm
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| Cojak wrote: |
Are sweet potatoes native to the USA?
In the Caribbean Islands I learned quick Yams are not Sweet potatoes, and Plantains ain't bananas.  |
According to this link, the Spanish brought them back to Europe from Central and South America.
http://www.sweetpotatoes.com/About/BriefHistoryoftheSweetPotato.aspx
My wife added a bit of cinnamon and lemon to my Mom's candied sweet potato recipe for our Christmas meal. They were really good.
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1/1/16 9:33 pm
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bonnie knox |
| Quote: | Now you have me thinking about a delicious nut. easy to peel and on a low bush (tastes sorta like a cashew) They were not plentiful, but I found them around Valdese (South mountains) and on the COG CG at Charlotte.
We cannot think of the name. |
Cojak, you have me intrigued. A low bush? So that rules out butternut, beech nut, chestnut, walnut, pecan unless any of those bear young.
Can you describe the hull or leaves or color or any other characteristics. I would love to know what plant you are referring to. |
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1/1/16 10:08 pm
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bonnie knox |
Hazel nuts? Filberts?
Surely not buffalo nuts which are toxic. |
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1/1/16 10:18 pm
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bonnie knox |
| Chinkapin? |
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1/1/16 10:49 pm
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DrDuck |
| bonnie knox wrote: | I've lived where they lived. And, as a kid, pretended to be one. Finding a feather was cause to tie a band around my head and stick the feather in it. We used sticks and strings for bows and arrows and little homemade cloth knapsacks for quivers. We found their projectile points.
(these are some I found)
We tried most any wild plant we knew was edible (and possibly some that weren't).
I'm sure deer was an important food source for Native Americans who lived in this area. I've eaten deer. I've eaten quite a few hickory nuts and persimmons in my time (native plants). My understanding is that the Native Americans didn't try to pick out each tiny little nutmeat of the hickory nut, but just smashed a whole slew of the nuts, boiled them, nuts, meats, and all, and skimmed off the resultant nut butter that rose to the top of the pot.
I've eaten cattail and turkey pea and Saskatoon berries (which we called currants, a misnomer--other folks called them service berry or sarvisberry), wild blueberries, wild rose hips, black haw, and lots and lots of blackberries.
I've also mistakenly eaten wintergreen root thinking it was what Daddy told us was turkey pea. That definitely left an impression on me!
I've eaten acorns. I was relieved to know the Native Americans had figured out how to leach the tannins out of the acorns so they wouldn't taste so bitter. Acorns were probably a significant source of food for the Native Americans. They leached the acorns in streams, dried them, and pounded them into flour.
I think the Native Americans also used pine needles for tea which is high in vitamin C. I don't think I've ever tried that, but I'm sure I've tasted the needles and bark. Not particularly palatable, if you ask me. I've eaten the seeds that came out of the pine cone, the seed inside beggar lice, and Sunflower seeds. I've also eaten pigweed seeds, which is basically a type of amaranth.
I used to read a cartoon which always associated pemmican (dried meat ground up and mixed with fat and dried berries) with the Native Americans. I've also read that in some places pumpkins were grown more for their seeds than flesh. I'm sure the seeds are higher in calories which would have been seen as a positive thing. I've never had pemmican, but I have eaten pumpkin seeds.
Just last week, I had natural maple syrup that my brother had made (from sugar maples here in NC), though that was probably more common with the Native Americans in the Northeast. (And I've taken a lick of red maple sap straight from the tree.)
I'm thinking Native Americans were some lean and hungry folks. |
This is one of the more interesting topics to appear on Acts in some while.
Bonnie, I want to say thanks to you. I have ate many of the items you mention. The one I notice most was one I have tried to remember what it was called. You mentioned the "black haw." Only encountered one bush of those berries in all my life and it was likely what you have in mind. The bush was in the woods near our house and I would often run and get some to put in my oatmeal. But you reminded me that my grandmother called them "black haws." I have tried for years to remember that.
In our cow pasture there was a lone tree that had a berry about 1/4 to 3/8 inch in diameter. It was sweet and grandmother called it a "red haw." Where I now live, the swamps are full of what the locals call "mayhaws." The town of Colquett, 13 mile North, has a Mayhaw Festival every year. These look like the "red haws" of my childhood but none I have tried taste good to eat raw. They are commonly gathered to make jelly.
You also mentioned, among other things I well remember, hickory nuts. A neighbor of ours had some hickory trees that bore nuts that were much larger than the ones found wild in the woods. The nuts were more pecan size and were easier to bust and get the meat out than any I have ever seen anywhere else. I would love to have some of them. I like pecans but would take those hickory nuts or even a black walnut over pecans any time.
Interesting thread. |
Acts-celerater
Posts: 755
1/2/16 8:20 am
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bonnie knox |
DrDuck, I do remember a mayhaw or perhaps a red haw as well. Apparently it did not continue to live because I only remember it vaguely from when I was very young. If I recall, it had a good flavor. I will ask my older siblings if they remember it.
It's funny how one tries to remember. I was going to look up haw in the dictionary once. I wasn't really sure if we were saying "hall" or "haw." I found out a "hall tree" is a coat rack. 
I actually have a black haw tree in my yard which my brother dug up from his pasture for me to plant as a specimen tree. It has white blooms in the spring and nice burgundy foliage in the fall. I occasionally find a fruit on it, but it doesn't bear much. (When I found out the optimum pH for haw is higher than some of the other trees around here, I added some wood ashes along with the compost I used to fertilize it with.) The haw fruit is small and has a large single seed which takes up quite a bit of space. In my opinion, it doesn't sound like such a good candidate for oatmeal, but as my Daddy is wont to say, "It's beats a snowball," in other words has more flavor and/or sustenance.
Now, the sparkle berry and service berry would both have been good in the oatmeal, I think. Of course, sometimes the same common name can be used for different plants, and what your grandmother called a black haw might well have been something besides Viburnum prunifolium. |
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1/2/16 11:39 am
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bonnie knox |
| Quote: | | You also mentioned, among other things I well remember, hickory nuts. A neighbor of ours had some hickory trees that bore nuts that were much larger than the ones found wild in the woods. The nuts were more pecan size and were easier to bust and get the meat out than any I have ever seen anywhere else. I would love to have some of them. I like pecans but would take those hickory nuts or even a black walnut over pecans any time. |
I know what you're talking about. My younger brother did some hiking on the AT with his son last spring. He recalled finding a hickory nut with a nutmeat as big as a walnut's. They can vary a lot in size and quality from tree to tree. I think the shagbark hickories may have bigger nutmeats.
I did a blog post a year ago on hickory nuts. Picking out meats from small hickory nuts is about as tedious as recounting who said what on Acts. 
http://organicdiscourse.blogspot.com/2014/11/hickory-nuts.html
I don't have access to a black walnut tree, but I usually see postings on Craigslist in October of people giving them away for free. I considered it, but decided I would just buy a little pack of ones already shelled out to make cookies with. I have a friend who was raised by his grandmother (in Virginia). A pleasant memory for him was his grandmother cracking black walnuts on a brick wall. She made cookies with them, which was a very special treat for my friend. Every year I make black walnut oatmeal cookies for that friend at Christmas. Just this morning, my son finished up the half batch I saved for us. It was indeed a very good flavor. |
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1/2/16 12:01 pm
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DrDuck |
| bonnie knox wrote: | DrDuck, I do remember a mayhaw or perhaps a red haw as well. Apparently it did not continue to live because I only remember it vaguely from when I was very young. If I recall, it had a good flavor. I will ask my older siblings if they remember it.
It's funny how one tries to remember. I was going to look up haw in the dictionary once. I wasn't really sure if we were saying "hall" or "haw." I found out a "hall tree" is a coat rack.
I actually have a black haw tree in my yard which my brother dug up from his pasture for me to plant as a specimen tree. It has white blooms in the spring and nice burgundy foliage in the fall. I occasionally find a fruit on it, but it doesn't bear much. (When I found out the optimum pH for haw is higher than some of the other trees around here, I added some wood ashes along with the compost I used to fertilize it with.) The haw fruit is small and has a large single seed which takes up quite a bit of space. In my opinion, it doesn't sound like such a good candidate for oatmeal, but as my Daddy is wont to say, "It's beats a snowball," in other words has more flavor and/or sustenance.
Now, the sparkle berry and service berry would both have been good in the oatmeal, I think. Of course, sometimes the same common name can be used for different plants, and what your grandmother called a black haw might well have been something besides Viburnum prunifolium. |
When I was a child I too thought Grandma was saying "hall" not "haw." I am not sure I knew it was "haw" until I came to S. GA and heard of Mayhaws. Come to think of it, the little black berries I put in my oatmeal did not have that hard seed in the middle like the "red haws," but once you mentioned those words it seemed to ring a bell. I am pretty sure that is what my Grandma called the bush I got them from. It was about 12 feet high with, as I recall, small shiny leaves. The foliage was somewhat like a cultivated blueberry bush. The berries were about the size of wild (huckleberries) blueberries. I ate many of them from the tree, but favored putting them in oatmeal. |
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1/2/16 12:15 pm
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bonnie knox |
Of what I'm familiar with, what you describe sounds like Vaccinium arboreum,which is in the same genus as blueberries.
Here's a pic from University of Georgia College of Ag
The Wikipedia article calls them bitter, but the ones I've eaten (and I usually eat them in the fall) are not. |
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1/2/16 1:17 pm
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DrDuck |
| bonnie knox wrote: | Of what I'm familiar with, what you describe sounds like Vaccinium arboreum,which is in the same genus as blueberries.
Here's a pic from University of Georgia College of Ag
The Wikipedia article calls them bitter, but the ones I've eaten (and I usually eat them in the fall) are not. |
That looks like it Bonnie. I may be wrong, but the term "black haw" just rung a bell and my mind tied it to those berries. My grandma never heard of a "Vaccinium_arboreum." Don't rightly know if I have either. In any case, that is the only bush of them I ever saw. I was all over the wood within miles of my childhood home and never spotted another. So, the were not very common in our neighborhood. Thanks for the info. |
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1/2/16 6:01 pm
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Cojak |
| bonnie knox wrote: | | Chinkapin? |
That is the name of the nut I was trying to think of, I haven't seen themin years. The CHINKAPIN NUT!
THANKS BONNIE
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http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/ |
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1/2/16 6:32 pm
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bonnie knox |
| Quote: | | My grandma never heard of a "Vaccinium_arboreum." |
Well, we call them hackyberries. Of course, that doesn't mean anyone anywhere else called them that.
I think Grandpa used the bark of it (or leaves?) medicinally. |
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1/2/16 7:00 pm
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DrDuck |
| bonnie knox wrote: | | Quote: | | My grandma never heard of a "Vaccinium_arboreum." |
Well, we call them hackyberries. Of course, that doesn't mean anyone anywhere else called them that.
I think Grandpa used the bark of it (or leaves?) medicinally. |
I don't recall ever hearing of hackyberries; so I am sure that was not the name she used for them. If I am wrong that she called them black haws, I guess I am still forgetting what she called them. I used to love to eat ripe huckleberries. They grew in the woods on bushes about knee high. Actually they are a variety of blueberry. My grandma used to pick them green and make pies with them that way.
In light of the initial thought of this thread; I think our predecessors in this land likely ate quite well having all the "live off the land" resources that were here by nature as well as what they could raise. And most of us have sampled the food they ate without realizing it. |
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1/2/16 8:04 pm
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Did any of you grow up eating muscadine grapes? They aren't as good as most grapes from the store to eat fresh, IMO, but they sure make some of the best grape jelly and jam I've ever tasted.
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1/2/16 8:36 pm
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bonnie knox |
Yes. My brother found a vine he particularly liked and brought a piece of it home. It is still bearing in abundance these many years later. He has cultivated varieties that he also grows now. I have a couple of vines of a cultivated variety, but for some reason they dropped their fruit prematurely.
I love muscadines. |
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1/2/16 10:01 pm
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Cojak |
| Link wrote: | | Did any of you grow up eating muscadine grapes? They aren't as good as most grapes from the store to eat fresh, IMO, but they sure make some of the best grape jelly and jam I've ever tasted. |
To a bunch of boys on the way to the river to fish then swim, finding a muscadine vine was sorta like finding gold. We loved them. I ate them hull and all most of the boys spit out the hull, or just squirted the inside into their mouth.
I tried transplanting them many times without success. Mama said I didn't have a green thumb, I just loved everything to death with 'over caring'.
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1/2/16 11:11 pm
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My grandmother had a green thumb and she had a pretty good patch of muscadine vines growing up on her property that produced a lot of grapes, along with a few rows of other grape vines. She had other grapes, chessnuts, a black walnut tree, a rather sour cherry tree, plums, and usually grew corn, beans, and sometimes some squash. I had plenty of good down-home southern food when I went there.
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1/5/16 4:46 pm
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I read online that a lot of southern cuisine and soul food is Native American food: grits, hominy, varieties of boiled beans and peas. Wikipedia said hush puppies were native food. I didn't know they fried. They also smoked their meat, so some of the food processes used on pork are influenced by Native American cuisine.
I may have grown up eating nearly as much Indian food as European food without really realizing it, since Europeans didn't have green beans or corn before they came over.
I've got to ask my wife to get some green beans or pole beans on the way to China town. I haven't had any good southern style green beans in a long time. My wife is doing the Daniel fast thing. Does anyone know how to cook up green beans so that they taste like they have bacon grease in them without using any animal products? The beans would be good for her for protein, but I don't know if I can satisfy my craving without the extra flavor. I suppose we could do two batches.
Indonesians eat pole beans. I think that is just a variety of green beans, a Native American plant that got exported around the globe. I think they just boil them for salads, and they also stir-fry them, not too well-done with garlic and carrots for quasi-western food, to serve as a side with steaks. It's good, but not the same as the very done southern variety that I'm craving. I can't really tell much difference in terms of taste between pole beans and string beans if they are cooked that way, if memory serves me correctly. Pole beans have the advantage of not having as many little beans to string.
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1/5/16 4:50 pm
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Quiet Wyatt |
Muscadines are pretty good, but I agree they are much better when made into a jelly.
One particular native plant that I've only had opportunity to eat once but which I would LOVE to eat again is poke sallet (pokeweed). Absolutely the best greens I ever have tasted. From what I know, the Indians didn't eat pokeweed, but mainly just used the poke berries as dye. If pokeweed is not picked early in the spring and prepared correctly, it can be poisonous, which may be why the Indians weren't too keen on eating it. |
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1/5/16 7:14 pm
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