Skip to main content

On Lovage, long forgotton plants and lawn mowers

 First off, I'm a fan of history and food.  So when I found Tasting History on YouTube I was a fan right off the bat.

In fact, I tried this dish below.  Although I was disappointed in it at the end of the day.  I didn't have two of the ingredients; lovage and caraway seeds (which Sue swore she had), so I ended up replacing them with celery leaf and cumin.  The chicken ended up being very moist and peppery but there was no "wow" flavor.  Nothing that unusual about it, even though it used several ingredients that I was unfamiliar with.  I don't mind being pushed out of my comfort zone in the name of good food.


It did bring up an interesting question for me however.  If I'm serious about learning how to garden, preserving my food and other things...would I be willing to try and raise "forgotten" foods?

This interest actually goes all the way back to collage, when I learned that Spirulina was used by the Aztecs in a type of dried cake.   Of course, the Spaniards - being the more "civilized" - looked down upon this food and it fell out of favor.  Today, it's made a bit of a comeback as a supplement but is still not consumed in mass qualities.  I guess most people don't want to eat an algae.  In fact, their are entire libraries about food that fell out of favor for what ever reason.

Other foods, such as the so called ancient grains, have made a comeback in recent years due to a variety of reasons, including an increase in Celiac Disease over the last several years.  Now I could make a snarky comment about marketing here...but I won't.

Anyhow, to get back on topic.   Why not grow some plants that have been forgotten?  Or at least try to?

I'm not talking about raising Ortolan Buntings either.  I'm talking about Lovage.  I'm talking about Ground Cherries, Egyptian onions, Sorrel and other forgotten plants.  


However that is still in the spring, which will be here before I know it.  As such, I've started a small mulch pile out back which currently exists only of leaf debris and a bit of organics like an old apple core or two.  I'll be adding a more "green" layer to it with grass clippings soon enough.   We were thinking about buying a 20 year old lawnmower with a snow plow attachment and an old trailer to help cut the lawn, move the mulch to the garden and the wood to the house.

I've been to realize just how useful something like that could be around our two + acres.

I'm really getting into the research here, and I've often said that I am a researcher at heart, and hope to be able to take all this knowledge to a practical level soon enough.   Although I've a feeling that our first garden will be smaller than I think and not on raised beds like I would like.   

That's okay, I'm still learning.   '

We will be planting the more traditional cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, onions, etc as well.   For Sue and myself, it's more about getting out food bill down and living a more sustainable lifestyle.  I'm attracted to the idea of keeping some of the more historically grown plants alive and vital.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

Rain and tears and those damned deer. Gardening can be painful.

“ None of us understand what we're doing, but we do beautiful things anyway.” ― Allen Ginsberg   The weatherman stated that we have not had any significant rainfall in over two weeks.  Nor did he see any relief in site. We are not in drought conditions yet, we are just unusually dry.  Interestingly enough, Pennsylvania should be getting warmer and wetter in the future if the climate models hold true.  If we narrow that down even more to my home town , the picture becomes even more interesting.   Solar Punk Pittsburgh For now though, I was worried about my garden.   It is not that big, I basically have a variety of containers around where I am maintaining lettuce, leeks, tomato's, peppers, strawberries, grapes, sunchokes (which I was really interested in growing) and a few other things.     Every garden needs to be watered and I played around with the idea of a r ain water collection systems before, we even had a simple one i...
2 comments
Read more

You don't give up, you never give up.

 I'm really not in the mood for this.  It's raining again and I am on the phone making calls and sending emails and texts; letting myself get frustrated over things that I know, deep down in my soul, that I can not control. I'm very disappointed in people right now.  Roughly two weeks or so ago I started on a quest to find a small flock of goats of clear some land.   I have made phone calls, texted people, contacted websites and made inquires on sources like Reddit and Facebook.   I even spoke to a few Amish that live in the area.    Leads were given to me by various sources, companies were found and contacts made via text and voice mail, however, no one got back to me.   Not a single one.   No call back from the local 4 - H club.  No call back from the goat farmer.  Emails went unanswered.   Well that's not true.  One company did get back to me but the cost was higher than I expected.  Actual...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rebirth has come at last - reason to hope on Earth Day

I could not let this Earth Day pass without acknowledging some things.  So let's talk about success stories, and why we should have hope for the future. For the first time in a long time I have hope in the environmental movement.  Yes, there are still a lot of climate change deniers out there - and they are becoming more doomsayers than anything.   I used to be one of them, a doomsayer, meaning that I didn't have much hope for the future, and would gladly tell you we were fucked six ways from Sunday.   We still are in a lot of ways...but like the first flowers that are poking through their lovely heads through the ground...we have reasons to hope. In some ways I believe that the pandemic was a shot in the arm for the environmental moment.   Bird watching boomed.  People had time to watch nature shows and documentaries.  Home cooking became something pleasurable for people to do again.  Frankly my interest in cheese making flourishe...
1 comment
Read more