I've lifted weights off and on for years and tried a lot of diets. Paleo will get you lean and hard. But, you'll hit a plateau without carbs especially if you lift heavy or do high intensity work either in real life or the gym. I think a varied diet of meat and fish that is raised well and fed a natural diet (or wild harvested), fresh plant food raised naturally and nutrient dense, good carbs and good fats, is the best long term diet.... or, in other words... the typical diet most folks ate for thousands of years before scientists and doctors (who are so notoriously in vibrant and rude good health... right? Nope!) gave us diets. Cook your own food and bake your own bread.... grow it yourself or buy from people who do things the right way... avoid processed foods... work hard... don't worry.
I agree with potential toxicity in compromised sites. As for the other part of your question, it is a long held belief that the most potent herbs grow in harsh environments. I do not know if this folk wisdom is universally true But, medicinal herbs and wild edibles growing... for instance... out of a mostly bare stone, windswept mountain outcropping are believed to be most nutrient dense and/or potent. Similar beliefs are held about dense swamps and dark woods and desserts. Anywhere the plant grows lowly and struggles to survive. That said, could you grow even more nutrient dense, potent plants in very rich "better than organic' polyculture systems? I don't know. It would be well worth experimenting.
Well, I'll say up front that I can't afford anything right now. But, if you can build my dream instrument, in the future... I'll save up for it if it is along the lines of what you've already quoted. I play jazz and country, and several instruments. I'm partial to guitar type 4th tunings and tenor/mandolin type 5th tunings. I also love old Mosberg double neck designs. My dream instrument is a telecaster style double neck.... 7 string (Van Eps style) guitar neck on the bottom, with a Bigsby style tremolo... and a 5ths tuned, 4 sting tenor neck on top.... tele style lipstick pickups.. for each and something twangy on the guitar bridge. Obviously, there are a few engineering challenges... looking for a very jazzy tone... Ted Green and Joe Maphis.
Catherine Windrose wrote:Ah Pearl. I'm out of apples. Those remind me of Lewis Grizzard's humor and writings.
I am a fan of Lewis Grizzard, probably why that made me giggle. That and it's questions I'd like to know the answer to. I have persimmon trees and possums, this could be important!!
:D
Surely, you mean The Great Lewis Grizzard, American by Birth, Southern By the Grave of God, and GO Dawgs!
Wj Carroll wrote:BTW, common prickly pear cactus is kind of like bland kiwi... some improved varieties have more flavor. But, If you torch them to remove the cactus spines, then juice them to remove the seeds and pulp... maybe add a little pomegranate juice.... amazing wine! Also pretty awesome in sangria with red wine and citrus. But, also good for just plain eating with some salt or hard cheese. You can also add sugar and lemon, freeze and make a granita.
We've found incredible variety in the flavors of different prickly pear fruit in our area. One small spherical red-fruited variety tastes very much like a cross between cherries and strawberries! Another large pear-shaped purple variety is more bland, almost a little savory/salty, but cut in half and put in water with a piece of piloncillo sugar and maybe a cinnamon stick and a couple of dried chilis ferments to an incredible "soda" (very low alcohol content) called colonche that relies on wild yeasts. How do you make wine out of them, Wj Carroll? Do you pitch in wine yeast or rely on wild yeasts? The spineless kind seem to have the least flavor but are still refreshing, and anyway we grow those largely for the pads/nopales.
We've foraged wild grapes (Vitis arizonica) near us, but the large volume of seeds in each small berry have something in them that numbs my tongue. Does anyone know what this could be? I don't like them and haven't figured out how to use them. I like juniper berries (especially in combination with spruce tips in a syrup for flavoring beverages). On the list to try to find are raspberries and blackberries in the mountains, elderberries closer to us, and managing to get any ripe mulberries before the birds. If nuts count, I'm focused on collecting Arizona black walnuts when they're green this summer to make nocino again as well as later in the year to eat.
Thanks for the great thread, Steve!
You have a good palate! Most people don't get the subtleties at all. Yes, I do use yeast.
BTW, common prickly pear cactus is kind of like bland kiwi... some improved varieties have more flavor. But, If you torch them to remove the cactus spines, then juice them to remove the seeds and pulp... maybe add a little pomegranate juice.... amazing wine! Also pretty awesome in sangria with red wine and citrus. But, also good for just plain eating with some salt or hard cheese. You can also add sugar and lemon, freeze and make a granita.
A kombucha scoby is very similar to a vinegar mother - but seems to be a bit tougher/more aggressive. It really depends on your environment... but since a scoby has both yeast and acetic acid bacteria, I usually just use the scoby, whether in wine, cider or even fresh juice. The scoby will not be healthy and vigorous like in tea... but it does seem to work pretty well
I suppose the oldest canned items I've eaten were not "officially canned". My great grandfather used to give away his honey in Ball quart jars, with a big piece of comb in each. His honey was nearly dark as molasses and I savored every drop... I guess the last he collected was more than 40 years ago. Also, my grandfather put home made wine in most any bottle, jug or jar he could find. I was sipping on his "muscadine dry sherry" 30 years after he died. Right now, I have pickles and pepper jelly my grandmother put up in 1992.
Olga Booker wrote:I am sure that overtime they would have cross pollinated. If not, they would have just adapted to their own surrounding, climate, soil etc... When we moved to France from the UK, we noticed that although we had the same flora and fauna, somehow, everything was a tiny bit different. A bit bigger or a bit smaller, a bit greener or a slight different shape. Quite extraordinary really if you think about it. After all it's only 800 miles. Imagine what it could do, crossing the big pond and landing in the US.
Well put. Also, my French folks came from 3 distinct regions of France in three waves of immigration about 50 years apart, so they may have brought multiple varieties of seeds with them. Only one group came directly to coastal Carolina. The first came here after spending a couple of generations on sugar plantations in the islands. The last came here via Nova Scotia/Acadiana. So, that too is a huge geographical diversity.
That looks very much like it, too... but slightly different. I really wonder if when my French ancestors settled here, they may have brought some seeds with them. Then, seeing a native variety that looked so similar.... probably began growing both and they crossed. The flesh/texture of the French squash looks right - firm, bright but tender. But, the shape was most consistently like the Native American squash. I think I'll try oth and maybe a couple of others and breed for the taste and texture I miss.
Thanks - some similarity.... but not the same. The ones we grew were flatter... less cup shaped... white like the first one, but scalloped like the second one
My family always grew a "patty pan" summer squash that I loved. It was an heirloom in our family, but one that apparently was not shared with extended family. Most of my family is dead, and those that are left... the few who grow food, seem to have never heard of it. My family is half French and has been in the Carolinas for about 400 years. So, looking for the "patty pan" I find a French heirloom and a native American heirloom... but neither look or taste quite like what we took for granted. The squash my family grew were always white - not green, striped or yellow.... always pure white. They were, of course, scalloped. But, they were also flattish... not bulbous in the middle, but certainly thicker in the center than the edges. If anyone can help me source seeds, I'd be very appreciative. Sliced, breaded and fried, no squash I've ever tasted comes close. They were only slightly sweet, and very rich... not watery at all... meaty but light.
Sounds good. I cook from scratch, not only because it saves money... but, I cannot buy the quality of food I cook, from scratch in any restaurant where I live. There was one chef who was all "farm to table"(also about the most expensive restaurant in the county).... saw Sysco delivering to his restaurant. I asked... he claimed that they were his "ketchup and plastic wrap supplier." So.... no.
I have not seen mushrooms growing on pine, proper. But Chicken of the woods will grow on conifers. You might try getting some chicken dowel plugs from Mushroom Mountain and seeing if they will take... they are reasonably priced and worth experimenting. IF they do, that is a crop in itself, but will also help break the trunk down. Might be a few other mushrooms worth trying, too.
I live in bear country... just a few years ago, my veteran, retired cop neighbor awoke to what he thought was someone breaking into his house. He grabbed a 9mm and walked toward his front door about the same time as a 490 lb black bear crashed through it.... fortunately, his neighbor likes bear meat... Some folks don't. But, I'd echo, "THe problem is the solution".... that is a whole lot of meat... and it is so very good if taken in cold weather dressed and butchered quickly!
I have found some good stuff... but a friend of mine managed a municipal dump site.... here are some of the things he found in just one year: a valuable antique banjo, a hand made early American chair, two valuable original paintings, cases of wine, cast iron pans and other antiques, valuable baseball cards, a coin collection, guns, boxes of ammunition, jewelry, antique books .... and 150 lbs of pot that someone likely disposed of before a raid... he retired soon after...
Hopefully, I won't have to be in the NC sandhills for another growing season.... but if I am, turmeric is about the only thing I can think of to grow in sand, shade and heat. But, how would I sell it? This is a retirement area -folks not really cooking, so the farmer's markets are just flowers and salad greens.... really more an outing than a source of produce. Any ideas? Also, how would I figure out the price point?
Unless a restaurant specifies, I'd sell them by the bunch as opposed to by the pound. I think $10 a pound would be very fair, as that is a lot of ramps. Ramps are so seasonal though and so hard to find outside of specific regions (like my backyard.... woohoo!)….. I'd make bunches of maybe 1/3rd pound (max) and sell for $5 each
I don't think anyone one would dispute Kudzu's almost unparalleled ability to spread, get out of control and take over in the right environments - the right environment being hot and humid but not too wet. Kudzu is extremely sensitive to frost and wet feet. I have been working on breeding a less vigorous variety. It is also almost impossible to spread by seeds - it spreads by vining and root crowns. Out of hundreds of seed trials, I've only had two sprout, and both died within days being so sensitive to conditions. Cope certainly never advocated allowing it to spread unchecked - he was quite explicit about this in his book. I would tell anyone who would not be willing to take the necessary steps in preventing its spread to simply not even consider growing it. It can be controlled with heavy grazing (especially by goats), but I would recommend only planting it in containers and trellising it - pruning/harvesting regularly to prevent it spreading unintentionally by long cines touching the ground. The way it was used, indiscriminately, for erosion control was irresponsible - but, I can almost guarantee that had vining wisteria been used in similar fashion, wisteria would be considered a contemptable "noxious" weed and not a valuable ornamental. I have, at least, a yearly battle on a small property owned by may aunt, with a wisteria vine.... the thick, tough, rope-like vines run hundreds of yards, under leaves and mulch, rooting as they go and climbing everything. Compared to the native Virginia Creeper and the "invasive" kudzu, the "ornamental" wisteria is an inedible, allergy inducing, tree and shrub, choking monster! Nor is kudzu a match for the ornamental English Ivy that has killed several large pine trees on the property. Being unwilling to use Round Up, I fight those vines essentially tooth and nail, with weed blades and a machete! Oh, and poison oak seems particularly fond of growing in and among ivy and wisteria.... that combination is my green monster.
Chances are you've never hear of Channing Cope.... but 100 years ago, if you lived in the American South, you would have.... and you would have been very familiar with his vision of "a Permanent Agriculture". He had a popular radio show and wrote a popular gardening column for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. At the time, it was said that the wealth of the South… it soil, was washing away. The South was the agricultural heart of all America. This was the pre-dust bowl. Kudzu had been introduced as an ornamental to America in Philadelphia, in 1876. A Florida gentleman promoted it to prevent soil erosion. Cope saw the soil washing away and came up with a system of rotational grazing of cattle, based on kudzu and native grassed. Kudzu is a leguminous nitrogen fixer. It grows like crazy in the my climate...."the vine that ate the South." Unfortunately, the Army Corp of Engineers settled on it merely for the prevention of erosion... left ungrazed or used by humans (it is nutritious, edible, medicinal and a useful fiber) it will overwhelm the landscape... in some places, some folks say it grows a yard a day.... I think it high time kudzu got the respect it deserves and is used as a useful part of Permaculture systems. I've been working on that for years and it will likely be my main contribution to Permaculture.... if it works out. Imagine, one container grown vine that could provide protein rich, spinach like leave that could feed an entire family through 3 seasons... or make hay for an entire flock... or produce a nearly constant supply of mulch, while fixing nitrogen int he soil... plus medicine, fiber and material for baskets... even fishing lines... oh, and you can make wine and jelly from the flowers... starch... who knows all the uses? Well, here is Channing Cope's signature work. He is much maligned... remembered as a kook and a drunk. He deserved a whole lot better. He should be mentioned in sentences with Yeomans and Fukuoka. ENJOY (and yes, I have mentioned this before, but THIS matters! If 100 or 1,000 people were experimenting with kudzu, my vision may come to fruition). Imagine Cope's vision.... much like Salatin in rotational grazing... but he dreamed of the farmer could sit on his front porch, watching the cattle graze, as the kudzu grew to feed them... with the soil getting deeper and more fertile every day.... The Front Porch Farmer. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003340340;view=1up;seq=1
It looks like it's used for fighting some types of infection as well as strengthening the circulatory system.
My Japanese friends suggest that eating Kudzu is considered good for health in general and good for boosting the immune system.
As we don't have kudzu here, I haven't done any in-depth research, but it's frequently found in Chinese medicine and I've seen mention of it in modern herb books. I also seem to remember a thread about the healing benefits of Kudzu on permies somewhere. If it doesn't exist, it would make a great topic for a new thread.
In my opinion, kudzu is one of the most understood and least utilized plants in America. I've been working to domesticate a less vigorous kudzu in the American South (it being the vine that ate the south) for years. Channing Cope wrote about Kudzu as a facet of a "permanent agriculture" in the 1920s... he should be recognized as a father of Permaculture... but instead, is regarded as the lunatic who spread kudzu... never mind he and his kudzu stopped the soil erosion in the South that would have dwarfed the Dust Bowl, and pioneered pastured cattle grazing on kudzu and native grasses as an asset, not a detriment. So, anyt new use for the miracle leguminous vine is HUGE in my book, and much apprecciated!
Wild blackberries and blueberries, no doubt! Blackberries are good most anywhere, but those little "buckshot" blueberries that grow on almost bare rock in the mountains are such a rare and wonderful treat.... beyond that, wild grapes, feral apples, cherries and pawpaws… and the rare gooseberry that survived eradication... mulberries sometimes and elderberries.... cedar/juniper berries.. It all grows all around me... but, blackberries are the most common and easy to find
Obviously, I can't give specifics.... I'm not an expert herbalist and this a newish adaptation of a virus, But in general, Oil of oregano, garlic and turmeric, vit C and zinc are a good regimen when you thin you may be exposed to something nasty
