Acquired Ethnic Cuisine & Gardening

[baymule]

I haven’t even had a garden the past few years. That is sad.
My Daddy always had a garden. He loved to try new things. When the long slender eggplant showed up, he was delighted to grow it and give the eggplant away. Being the jokester that he was, he told people that it was black bananas and not to peel it, but cut in slices. He told them to dip the slices in milk and beaten egg, roll in cornmeal and fry. People loved it! Best bananas they ever had!

 

[ducks4you]

10 Fascinating Food Stories to Share Over Dinner - Modern Farmer

Food is personal. It's more than just what you eat. It ties you to a community, to a culture. It can be history. It can be innovation. It can be an act of

modernfarmer.com

 

[ducks4you]

I always thought that This was called, "Smut," and ruined your corn crop.

Huitlacoche, a Mexican Fungus, is Popping Up On Restaurant Menus Across the US - Modern Farmer

Carolina Aboumrad, a restaurant supplier, was having lunch at a Mexican eatery in Los Angeles. While chatting with the server, she mentioned she sources

modernfarmer.com

 

[digitS']

Not quite what I was looking for in this thread but :

Why the Tomato Was Feared in Europe for More Than 200 Years

How the fruit got a bad rap from the beginning

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[Zeedman]

I always thought that This was called, "Smut," and ruined your corn crop.

Huitlacoche, a Mexican Fungus, is Popping Up On Restaurant Menus Across the US - Modern Farmer

Carolina Aboumrad, a restaurant supplier, was having lunch at a Mexican eatery in Los Angeles. While chatting with the server, she mentioned she sources

modernfarmer.com

It does ruin the crop, especially if you are growing sweet corn. Hard to eliminate from a garden site too, if the spores are allowed to break free. Varieties with tighter husks are less likely to get infected. Shorter varieties, with ears closer to the ground, are more vulnerable.

Anyone who actually wishes to cultivate huitlacoche should try growing "Gaspe' flint corn. The ears are close to the ground, born 4-5 to a plant... and in my garden, were heavily infected by smut. It really kept me busy, trying to remove the infected ears before the spores could be released. Good thing there are so many ears per plant; I lost about 75% of them to the smut (and even more to mice), but was still able to collect a fairly good seed crop.

 

[digitS']

I hope that one reason for us to have gardens is to help us have healthy diets. Nutritionists tell us again and again that this means plenty of fruits and vegetables.

The prideful snootiness gardeners tend to have with garden success while traveling through the produce aisles at the soopermarket, that's probably a good thing – we have learned what is Good!

Successful gardeners can shrug off jokes about vegetable vs meat eaters. That thing about cows being fat while only eating green grass and carnivores being sleek and healthy while only eating meat ... maybe those folks thinking that haven't watched those nature programs with Gazelles racing across African grasslands and leaving Lions in their dust. Or, they haven't seen our North American Pronghorn Antelope or watched Mountain Goats climb nearly vertical, rocky cliffs.

Better Diet. For me, it was leafy greens that I could grow and make good use of with a skillet and some oil. Man, you don't have to use bacon, altho it's good to take advantage of that choice sometimes, IMO. Sausage can take it's place, BTW . More healthful oils are out there for us to choose from and it all becomes a mix of choices when we add some other vegetables and some spices/sauces. I often have to think about protein because, with a starch source added under the stir-fries, I have all the calories to satisfy my appetite. Well fine, lean protein – how about antelope ..?

digitS'

 

[digitS']

‍



"Neanderthals Cooked Surprisingly Complex Meals. Charred food remnants provide insight into 70,000-year-old dietary practices. "

Neanderthals Cooked Surprisingly Complex Meals

Charred food remnants provide insight into 70,000-year-old dietary practices.

getpocket.com

Did you know that Euell Gibbons is considered a saint by characters in Margret Atwood's dystopian novels? The 49th anniversary of his death is this month.

digitS'

 

[Zeedman]

The best, simplest dietary philosophy I ever heard was: "Eat like a deer, not like a cow." Deer browse on a variety of different plants, while cows will graze on a single thing until full. We are healthier when our diet is diversified; too much of any one thing can be unhealthy, regardless of the benefits of that one thing. Nothing is completely healthy, and at some point, the unhealthy aspect can outweigh the benefits.

Then too, deer are also a lot more active than cows (which is one more reason to emulate them). I draw the line at eating twigs though... or parts of pine trees. Sorry Euell.

 

[Zeedman]

I hope that one reason for us to have gardens is to help us have healthy diets. Nutritionists tell us again and again that this means plenty of fruits and vegetables.

There are a lot of reasons to have a vegetable garden, with nutrition being just one of them. There is much to be said about growing the vegetables & varieties we choose, controlling what is - and is not - in them, and consuming them at peak flavor fresh from the garden.

But please forgive me @digitS' if I go momentarily off topic, because as much as it pains me to do so, I have to add one caveat:

Despite our best efforts, home-grown vegetables are not automatically healthier than store bought produce.

Those of us who garden organically assume that our vegetables are relatively free of contaminants, That might not be the case (especially in urban environments) because contaminant-free vegetables can only be grown from contaminant-free soil. Lead (from paint, and from the years of leaded gasoline) may be present, as may other contaminants from the years before we became environmentally aware. The soil may contain toxins from previous agricultural use, from contaminated soil brought in, or from reckless backyard dumping. Just because land appears to be open & unused now, does not mean it has always been so.

Some personal examples:

In the 80's, when I was in the Navy, I was allowed to plant a garden in a vacant field, in exchange for mowing that field. My tiller kept jumping at one point, and I finally dug down with a pick hoe, expecting to dig up a big rock. It was a deeply buried asphalt sidewalk, running from the road to about 10' into the garden. Obviously there had once been a building there, despite the lack of any visual evidence.

In my present rural garden, I dug up large quantities of nails, bolts, hooks, and other iron hardware. There were even a few blobs of molten aluminum. So apparently that site had either been a burn pit (which were & are common in rural areas), or a structure which had burned down long ago. The present owner (who has lived there for over 25 years) said it was just lawn from the time they moved in, and knows nothing about its history.

And there are concrete blocks peeking out of some portions of my present lawn, which are evidence of rather indiscriminate dumping at some point. Even our own homes & properties can be shrouded in mystery.

 

[digitS']

Despite our best efforts, home-grown vegetables are not automatically healthier than store bought produce.

Of course, you are right, Zeedman.

Dumping oil and antifreeze on the ground used to be very common. It was sorta like pushing a junk car off into the river. Oh yeah, people used to commonly do that. Having a house that is 120 years old makes me wonder about what went into this ground before I arrived here. The neighbor to the west had just died before we moved in. His son came over from Seattle to put the house up for sale. He had lived here since early childhood. He told me that the people who lived my house since the 1930's had a garden where we do. It had become part of the lawn while the widow lived here alone for about 10 years and before she moved into a nursing home. Either way, lawn or garden, what did they use on that ground?

I recently found a square nail in the garden. It was in real bad shape and I'd already posted several pictures on the artifacts thread so I didn't include one of a sad-looking square nail. It surprised me a little that it was the first square nail that I have found here but wire nails became common about the time this house was built, I've learned. At another garden in a similar old neighborhood, there were so many square nails in one location that I just continued with whatever I was doing and didn't even bother to pick them up to look at them.

In my garden across the alley from our previous home, a house had once stood on that vacant lot. The foundation had been carried away, or carried off the surface soil. However, a shag carpet was buried at the very back of the lot that I found and avoided for the 3 years we had a garden there.

Steve