Thursday, May 8, 2014

Born a Yankee

But eating like a Southerner:
Pork steak locally raised & butchered by Paul.
Homemade/canned pickled okra and applesauce by yours truly.
Poke weed harvested right outside our back door, cooked &
fried up with some wild onions & wild garlic.
I swear, I must have been born too far north.  I cannot tell you how much I love cooking (and eating, obvious by my steadily growing backside) Southern kind'a foods.  I don't know if it's really a "South" thing or if I would have still made the same culinary changes in life had we moved to a homestead North of the Mason-Dixon line.  Well, except for the fact that I wouldn't be eating wild greens quite this early.......I know some of you still have snow in the woods.

The fact that we've been trying to change our eating habits probably has a lot to do with this.  As does the fact that I'm cheap and will harvest any wild munchies (i.e., free) like poke and lambs quarters, rabbit, squirrel, deer, fish and wild fruits like grapes and persimmons.

After spending some quality time in the garden again today (and getting swampass in the process), I'm going to gather some other wild weeds from the property like Lyre Leaf Sage and try some for tea and see what I can do with the clover blossoms.  We have a bunch of clovers & clover-like greenery (black medic or hops clover, white clover, red clover, arrowleaf clover and sweet clover) and I need to see if I can make it into something yummy for us.  Why should the goats get all the munchies?

6 comments:

  1. We love poke here as well, we have an abundance of it here at Rocky Oak...walk out the door anyday and grab a handful and cook it up! Foraging is a way of life for us...as well as hunting wild game like squirrel, rabbit, deer, wild hog etc...and Farm man is a wonderful fisherman and we keep the freezer full with bass,crappie, catfish, spoonbill etc..Cheap and healthy way to eat...we also have an abundance of nuts and berries here on the homestead...blackberries, wild strawberries, sand plums, walnuts, hickory nuts etc....living in the south is like a buffet of wild ediables isn't it...lol

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  2. I didn't realize until I moved away from home that I'd been eating Soul Food(i.e. Southern Food) all my life. That plate looks yummy!

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  3. Next time you're looking for a wild edible try some chicory. I never get any further than acorn flour when it comes to wild stuff these days and I only did that once just to see. Too busy with the other stuff I guess.

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  4. Carolyn,

    YUM, were going to your house for a meal....everything looks great on that plate.

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  5. Well, living in the north can provide some pretty darn tasty things, too. Unfortunately, only in the two months that aren't winter. There is nothing like sitting down to a meal that you have raised/gleaned/harvested/produced and cooked yourself. Nothing. I do honestly think that I'd have a hiney the size of a Peterbilt if I lived at your house. Everything you make looks delicious! Except squirrel. You couldn't do anything to squirrel to get me to eat it....

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  6. The Homestead Lady, it does help that the growing season here is longer than where we lived "up north".

    SciFi, Honestly, I didn't know "Soul" and "Southern" foods were the same!

    PP, funny, we had chickory EVERYWHERE back in the 'burbs in IL, but now I can't find it anywhere except on the highways around here. As for the acorns, how did you do it? I tried one year and even after soaking / boiling / soaking / boiling, then roasting, it tasted like crap, although I don't think they were the white oak acorns which are supposedly the less bitter ones.

    Sandy, I'm telling you, the way I cook, I could have surprise guests every knight and have no problem feeding them. Maybe I SHOULD as then WE wouldn't eat all the food (and lose some weight).

    Susan, so are you telling me that if you came down here and I served squirrel, YOU would turn your nose up at it? (Or secretely hand it down to Black Susan & Evil Kitty under the table).

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