Some jasmine and some wild foods

[asakiyume]

ETA: I do want to acknowledge and warn that all milkweeds are toxic, and some are more toxic than others. I used common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), which is less toxic than other species, and the blanching process removes toxins. Please be very careful if you try this yourself: look at a number of online foraging sources, and know your milkweed... I speak as someone who once poisoned herself with mushrooms--I don't want to have your illness on my conscience.

Here is the jasmine, so pretty, so fragrant!



And below this cut are before-and-after shots of fried immature milkweed pods. This are very tasty! I've mad them in past years, but this year they're like a garden crop, I have so much in my yard. I've cooked them twice already.



Here they are raw. You blanch them in boiling water, then coat them in egg, then dredge them in flavored cornmeal or flour or breadcrumbs, then either pan-fry them or deep-fry them (I pan fry them).



Here they are cooked:



And beneath this cut is a portrait of my staghorn sumac tree, plus some sun-brewed sumac tea (or sumac-ade), made by squeezing/bruising the berries, covering them in cold water, and letting them sit out in the sun for a while. The result is very fragrant and mildly sour in a nice way.



Pretty sumac




Sumac tea--look at all the natural oils up top



Good night, all!

Comments

[pameladean]

It's an interesting kind of food to contemplate, truly. Reduce toxicity and then don't eat too much at a time.

P.

[asakiyume]

:-)

Indigenous North Americans apparently ate it all the time! If you search on "milkweed edible" you'll come up with First Nations pages as well as forager pages ... and thinking of how poisonous cassava can be--and yet is the main starch in much of the tropics--I guess I think mainly how adaptive people are.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, yes indeed. I think of rhubarb too, and potatoes -- you can eat the greens of several root vegetables, but not that one-- and so on.

[asakiyume]

Definitely!