Eat the Weeds Newsletter 3 November 2015
by Green Deane
Black Gum seeds are easy to identify because of the vertical ridges. Photo by Green Deane
Do you know why the Sweet Gum tree is called “sweet?” Because it’s the least foul of all the “gum” trees. None have a great flavor regardless of what parts you might consume, be it the fruit or congealed sap. The Sweet Gum is not sweet. It’s just not asbad as the rest. And you can prove it yourself by trying some Black Gum fruit now in season.
Black Gum fruit looks far better than it tastes.
Also known as Black Tupelo, the fruit is sour and bitter, intensely so. I’ve only met one person who likes them right off the tree. Personally I think the fruit rightly reminds us of how desperately hungry people had to have been in the past. To get around the taste — which has been compared to really bad manure — folks cooked it and added huge amounts of sugar. One good identification characteristic of the Black Gum fruit is the vertical striations on the seed. You can read about the Black Gum here. The Sweet Gum is here.
Seagrapes taste a lot better than they look.
Cocoplums might be going out of season but Seagrapes are coming in. This week in Port Charlotte we got to taste a few, from the tree and off the ground. Sometimes the best fruits are the ones you have to fight the ants for. The only problem with Seagrapes off the ground — if it is a problem — is they can ferment a little and taste a bit zippy, wine-ish. In central Florida Seagrapes are at the northern end of their range. They fair a bit better on the coast but are usually no more than eight or 10 feet high. Further south they attain tree status and near the equator they are huge trees. (Did you know that tree that grow near the equator have no growth rings because they don’t have seasons as in the northern latitudes.) Seagrapes are garnet red color when ripe, and sweet. People mistakenly make them into jelly. It’s a mistake because the jelly tastes so much like apple jelly the Seagrape identity is lost. It’s best to just eat them out of hand. To read more about the Seagrape go here.
Murdannia nudiflora
Doveweed,Murdannia nudiflora,might be the smallest non-floating edible plant in the United States. Barely known, easily overlooked, yet very invasive. It pays to be small. For some young Doveweed is prime for soups, others view it as famine food. I can understand that. It’s closely related to a genus that gives me an upset stomach, the Commelinas (Dayflowers.) I use only Doveweed blossoms in my salad. To anyone used to finding Dayflowers the Doveweed will look familiar but only a few inches tall. It also has a lot of common names around the world including “Micky Mouse.” To read more about the Doveweed, go here.
Look before you reap!
It’s truly irritating to read someone write “never forage within 120 feet of a road.” It’s a non-thinking statement whereas foraging is a thinking activity. I am not aware of any formal research on the road topic so the distance is arbitrary to start with, and who carries a long measuring tape with them? More to the point it misses one of the most important points about foraging and the environment, assessing the lay of the land. Which way might the rain or runoff flow? How about prevailing winds? Is there manure pile nearby, or heavily used mega- farm land? Is it a dog park? Am I uphill a little from a country dirt road, or downhill and downwind from a busy interstate? The 120-foot mantra is rather meaningless. What’s more important is looking around. Foraging makes pollution personal. So take it personally. Is the flower bed above the parking lot and watered with city water? Does the nearby parking lot drain into the pond you are eying? Assessing what is in front of you is far more important than throw-away rules.