Years ago when I was in junior high school my English teacher assigned me the book by E. B. White titled "One Man's Meat." I read it and I am pretty sure I got an A on the book report, but for the life of me cannot remember what the book was about! I am sure it was about something very intellectually compelling because I remember I had asked to read some other book for the assignment and was assigned this one. (The title is based on a quote with the meaning that one man's meat is another man's poison. A theme we can all understand.)
Anyway, this post is a variation on that theme. It could be titled one man's cabbage is sometimes another man's/woman's weed. This post is about Aralia spinosa or what is commonly called the devil's walking stick.
A blog that I have read regularly is Robert Brady's PureLand Mountain. This blog was noted as a 'blog of interest' back in the infancy days of blogging and was one of the first blogs I started reading. Bob lives on the side of a mountain in Japan and his very well written blog is about that life. In Japan they routinely use wild plants to add richness to their diet just as we do with our wild mushrooms and fiddle head ferns in the spring. I read about his early spring search for the rare and reclusive tara-no-mein in this post . The Bradys have to go deep into the woods to their 'secret' place to harvest this delicacy.
After harvest they prepared the new spring shoots by frying them in a light batter like tempura. He followed the original post with another that discussed how he was surprised that the devil's walking stick can be found freely throughout the Eastern United States. It is not the exact same species but very close.
I was clearing some weeds around some young fruit trees my husband had planted along our driveway and I discovered that I have a whole grove of these plants growing at the edge of my forest. They have sprouted from a large devil's walking stick that I kept last year not knowing what it was. The plant stalk is thorny and certainly the reason for the common name it was given. The tiny white clusters of summer flowers were so attractive to pollinators and the bouquets of hanging purple berries that appeared in early fall were so lovely, that I purposely kept the plant when I was clearing the weeds. The plant grows tall with a cape of fern-like leaves that are attractive on their own. I counted 25 of these plants along the hill falling away into the forest, yesterday. One is 8 feet high and the rest are three to four feet. Since the plant can grow to 30 feet...this grove will be interesting. I hope that I have not encouraged an invasive weed here...
Now next spring I have to read up on harvest of the young shoots, as Bob says they are as valuable as caviar in Japan.
Yes, Tabor, you certainly have a treasure trove there. Tara-no-me likes the semishade at the edge of woods, places where it can sort of shyly grow above the surroundings, but away from 'traffic.' It's quite reclusive. And no wonder: the evolution of its major thornification indicates how it is treasured by nibblers! And if you enjoy the buds each spring (leaving one or two per plant), it won't overgrow.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting that you found all those plants after having just one. I'd take his advice, and nip the buds/shoots next spring.
ReplyDeleteThis just proves that you are never too old to learn something new. I had never heard of Devil's Walking Stick, much less seen one. And to eat one would really be a novel experience.
ReplyDeleteThanks for introducing me to the devil's walking stick and Pureland Mountain!
ReplyDeletevery interesting post!
ReplyDeleteHow interesting and how exciting for you to make this discovery.
ReplyDeleteI hope there will be a resurgence of learning what grows around us for food and medicine. Frank Cook, the thrivalist who spoke in Floyd recently said the wild mustard plant helped the old Appalachian people survive as the first eatable spring plant that came out when their winter stores were low. And Bill McKibben, who also gave a recent talk in Floyd, says we will need that kind of knowledge when the cheap oil runs out and the severe weather starts kicking in because of global warming.
ReplyDelete