You're not REALLY going to eat that.

Blessings Darlings!

Back in May I posted about eating weeds, and how bitter some of them are.  And WAY back, when I reviewed the Hunger Games books, I posted about how the author had clearly never eaten the dandelions she had her characters eat and enjoy.  And folks in Pagan groups online seem to post ALL THE TIME about edible wild plants - "And the seeds of plantain and etc can be ground into flour and cooked and eaten!"

Well, yeah, they can be.  But the odds are you aren't going to enjoy eating them.  That we know that they can be eaten is not a celebration of edible weeds so much as a commentary on how desperate folks have been in the past, by folks who are NOT desperate, and have never eaten them, today.

Yes, for us preppers and, probably, for us pagans it's important to know options that you have.  But that has to be coupled by having actually DONE the things you are telling others can be done.  Armchair knowledge without experience is 99% useless. 

I LIKE bitter foods, and can't eat most wild greens without 1 - only harvesting the youngest leaves; 2 - soaking them in several changes of CLEAN water before cooking 3 - cooking them; 4 - mixing the with other foods to help hide the bitterness.  My husband does NOT like bitter foods - if I was to assume that, in time of Great Need, I could feed him them, and I'd find out right quick that he'd ot be able to choke them down.  And a friend HAS gathered and ground seeds from plantain, cooked it, and found it pretty much inedible. 

"Intellectually knowing" that something can be done, "Intellectually knowing' how to do something, is not at all the same as having done it. This is both a prepper and an occult fact. 

Put down the book. Turn off the internet. Go out there and DO SOMETHING.

Frondly, Fern

Lenten Traditions

Blessings Darlings!

Yes, I know we're closer to Advent than Lent if you look at the Christian liturgical calendar.

As you may have already picked up, I'm a moderate Doomer.  I think that our society is facing problems (mostly End of Oil and Climate Change) that we are not at all facing, and that are making our shaky economy fail.  Because of this I see 'getting by' as getting harder and harder in the future.  I'm not saying that civilization itself is going to fail.  But it will change. And there will be very Hungry Times.  The human population will be reduced to what the earth can really support without the help of fossil and nuclear fuels.

It won't be pretty.

I'm learning skills to help me thru' the change.  And .... looking at the past for lessons for today.

So, this afternoon I was planting onion sets, to provide a bit of fresh green onions for winter.  Which got me to thinking about winters without fresh veggies, and the impact on the body.  Especially the impact of folic acid deficiency and birth defects, when it hit me.  Lent!

Traditionally during Lent meat was off the menu - it was likely to have run out by then anyway.  And the grain might have been running out.  And your body was low on folic acid from the winter as it was.  Getting pregnant at that time would have led to lots of birth defects in the spina bifida range.

So what did European tradition call for? Lent. Forty days or so of not just no meat, but no sex.  Which was the best way to prevent pregnancy at the time.  Not eating meat, and it being the hungry time of year, the menu would have relied on any early greens you could find.  Yes, Hunger Games lovers, that includes dandelions.  But also lovely early peas (and pea shoots), mustard greens, collards might be coming up again, spinach, lettuce - all those early crops.  What do all those early crops have in common?  High levels of folic acid. And great levels of beta carotene/vitamin A as well, another important thing in early pregnancy.

So by the time sex was allowed again after Easter, women's bodies were up to healthy levels of important vitamins.  The risk of conceiving a child with birth defects was lower.

Pregnancy isn't an issue for me anymore, but vitamin deficiency could well be during the Hungry Times.  Sprouts will help this type of thing.

Frondly, Fern

Wildcrafting: Plantain

Blessings Darlings!

We are finally getting rain here in the northern Blue Ridge Mountains.  We were at about half our normal rain for the year, with yesterday and today (today be Sunday) we might get up to 65% of normal.  The grass and fields planted in winter wheat are loving it - they were both VERY unhappy about the lack of rain. 

The wild greens are loving it, too.  We've moved out of dandelion and chickweed seasons (well, I have one patch of chickweed on the north side of the house I will harvest tomorrow, but that's it) and moved into the dock and plantain seasons.  Today, out in the cold rain, I harvested a scant quart of plantain.  Here are some pictures of it.  I have both the narrow and broad leaf varieties in the yard, but I harvest the broad leaf. 

Most parts of the plantain plant can be used, either for food or healing.  If you have a choice, the best parts for eating are young leaves.  The leaves get tough later.  And while the seeds are often listed as an item 'Indians ground and used for bread' ... that speaks more for how hungry folks got rather than the taste of the seeds, says a friend who tried doing that.

I'm going to use these as the greens in soup, with canned or dry tomatoes, whole wheat pasta or wheat berries, chickpeas, wild onion, and some asparagus.

What's fresh and tasty in your land base?

Frondly, Fern