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Butterburs bud
In Japan, today through January 24 is the microseason called "butterburs bud"
One fond memory I have of living in Japan as a family was the 60-plus-year-old director of the daycare where my kids went teaching me how to prepare fuki. In spring you could buy it in markets, but it's also a wild herb that you can forage. I remember where we foraged ours: there was this cut-through with a little bridge, and then you came up behind/beside the Watanabes' shop, which was a sort of convenience store in their house. We bought our kerosine there. I think I still have the director's hard-to-read instructions somewhere--maybe stuck inside a Japanese cookbook. I hope so, anyway.
I've seen butterbur here and thought of picking it, but I've never done it because I'm afraid it might not be exactly the same plant. It also gets translated into English as "coltsfoot."
Here it is--not a bud, but vigorous leaves:
(source)
And here it is, prepared:
(source)
Wow, I guess when you cultivate it, it can get quite large! The stuff we picked is much, much smaller.
(source)
Wikipedia tells me that the plant known as butterbur in Massachusetts, Petasites hybridus, is also called "bog rhubarb, Devil's hat, and pestilence wort." Gotta love folk names.
One fond memory I have of living in Japan as a family was the 60-plus-year-old director of the daycare where my kids went teaching me how to prepare fuki. In spring you could buy it in markets, but it's also a wild herb that you can forage. I remember where we foraged ours: there was this cut-through with a little bridge, and then you came up behind/beside the Watanabes' shop, which was a sort of convenience store in their house. We bought our kerosine there. I think I still have the director's hard-to-read instructions somewhere--maybe stuck inside a Japanese cookbook. I hope so, anyway.
I've seen butterbur here and thought of picking it, but I've never done it because I'm afraid it might not be exactly the same plant. It also gets translated into English as "coltsfoot."
Here it is--not a bud, but vigorous leaves:
(source)
And here it is, prepared:
(source)
Wow, I guess when you cultivate it, it can get quite large! The stuff we picked is much, much smaller.
(source)
Wikipedia tells me that the plant known as butterbur in Massachusetts, Petasites hybridus, is also called "bog rhubarb, Devil's hat, and pestilence wort." Gotta love folk names.
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I had no idea what that was called! I've seen it around. I always assumed it was a sort of wild rhubarb.
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My parents' house had a patch of rhubarb in the backyard when we moved in, but someone had clearly planted it. (We cooked with it for a couple of years.)
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The Orkney Islands are smothered in it!
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Not that I'm complaining! I love rhubarb. :o)
There's even rhubarb ice cream, which is sublime!
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