Foods from native USA plants

[Destin_scot]

all;

Since Scots are well known for making do with what is on hand and coming up with some innovative uses for things, (this might explain why there were many marriages between Scottish immigrants and Native Americans), I though I'd post some of the things I've tried and solicit others thought and experiences/experiments with the same:

Those of us in the SE USA have an assortment of native plants at out disposal to try using for food. I have made fruit preserves, (jellies) from the following:

American and Chickasaw Plums
Prickly Pear
Mayhaw (hawthorne's that have fruit that matures in late spring)
blue berries

I am currently making a batch of jelly from American Beauty Berry. This could be really interesting; since when rendering down the fruit, it has a spicy aroma that I haven't notice in the other fruits. I just wonder if it will carry over into the finished product.

responses?

[sydnie7]

Summers traveling with my family in Pacific NW were fueled in great part by huckleberries (which may be something like what you are calling blue berries, if I'm to believe Wikipedia). Jams, pies, cobblers. . . And the occasional encounter with bears, who enjoy them right off the vine! I don't know if blackberries are native or introduced but we also gathered them in the wild.

[brewerpaul]

Soon the chestnuts will be coming to the farmers market and a few grocery stores in this area. They are quite popular and not to be mixed with the buckey with is poisonous. We have all heard the song "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" and since I enjoy backyard fires I also enjoy throwing a few chestnuts in a cast iron skillet and roasting them. Another great use is roasting them and adding them to soaked and cooked chick peas to make a chestnut hummus. It adds a distinct nutty sweetness to the hummus that is quite good. Be sure to remember to score the chestnuts before roasting or you will be dodging the exploding ones. Enjoy.

[AKScott]

I processed some acorns into a batch of mush once upon a time. It was a lot of trouble, but very filling, I was able to go quite a long time before I was hungry again, I remember feeling really fed.

The trick is the naturally occurring tannins are very bitter. Once I had the nut meats out of the shells I sliced/ chopped them coarsely and got two pots of water boiling on the stove. I put the nut meats in a strainer and dipped in pot number one until the water turned quite brown. Lift out the strainer, move to other pot. Dump brown water from pot number one, bring to boil, move strainer over from other pot back to first pot for bath number three... I think I used five or six baths total.

Then rinse them off real good, cool, grind to like corn meal size or so and simmer like you were making polenta or grits. Nto bad with some butter and sugar. I hear the acorns of white oak trees have much less tannin than the acorns of red oak trees, don't know first hand.

[Duke of Delrio]

Some foods from native plants I have enjoyed over the years are:

Chokecherry, particularly chokecherry syrup
Wild currant which makes an excellent jelly
Camas root which has a small bulb that tastes rather like potatoes.
Bitterroot, an acquired taste in most cases.
Servias berry, bland but very plentiful and a staple unit in pemmican in the Pacific Northwest
Huckleberry which is certainly not the common blueberry. They are of a different genus.
Wild onions, either boiled fresh or dried.
Nettles
Wild strawberry
Wild cherry
Native watercress, which is somewhat different to the naturalized european varieties.

Try 'em sometime.

[David Thorpe]

...chokecherry syrup...

If ever there were a true nectar of the gods, this is it. A transcendental experience over sourdough pancakes. A Lakhota friend from the Pine Ridge rez brings us some every fall. All I have to do is furnish the pancakes.

[Duke of Delrio]

Just so, David. That's why chokecherry is at the top of my list!

Once the chokecherries have been juiced for the syrup, the residual pulp can be made into a wonderful sauce which, I think, compares very favorably to cranberry. And even further, when brought together in the right proportion with nuts and wild onion, chokecherries are the foundation of a delicious chutney.

One of my favorite all-American dinners is native grouse stuffed with wild rice (another of our fine native food plants) served with chokecherry chutney and followed by huckleberry pie. Oh my . . .

[OC Richard]

Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner is largely made up of native foods: turkey, corn, sweet potatoes, cranberries, &c.