Oh yes, and pass the Crabgrass seed "oatmeal," please...

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Here we go again, folks.

Crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis):

Briefly, Crabgrass is a clumped, mat-forming annual herb, rooting at the nodes of the horizontal stems, 6-30 inches tall. For more details let me know, or see the Rodale book "Controlling Weeds." Regarding my use of parentheses and ellipses, please see my separate thread on Quack-grass, below.

Again, pretty much straight from the texts:

"(Crabgrass)...is cultivated, according to Loudon, 'in the cottage gardens in Poland,' the seeds being used as a substitute for rice. Unger states that (they) furnish a wholesome and palatable nutriment and that the plant 'is cultivated here and there on poor, sandy soils.'" (primary quote from Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America, by Fernald and Kinsey, p. 103-4; inner quotes from the following: Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, 2d ed., by J. C. Loudon, 1844; and On the Principal Plants used as Food by Man, by F. Unger, 1860)

"The grains...are edible and were highly praised by the Slavs. Crabgrass was at one point cultivated in Poland as a cereal plant." (The Encyclopedia of Edible Plants of North America, by Francois Couplan, Ph.D., p. 471)

"Seeds, minute though they are, may be stripped off and used to make porridge, beverages (fermented to make beer), or toasted and ground to make flour. When cutting the fruiting plants in August with a hand scythe, I find the seeds congregate in large masses on the blade. These I have scraped off and cooked to make a poor man's oatmeal. A single plant may set as many as 150,000 seeds. Even in the temperate zone, it can produce 2-3 seed crops per season, seeding from early summer to frost. Seeds are substituted for rice in Poland and for grits elsewhere. Tropical species of Digitaria may yield more than 17 tons biomass per acre in a year...Almost all grasses are safe sources of cereals, (but) CAUTION: Grasses and cereals may be moldy, especially in damp periods of the year. Black molds are particularly dangerous. Wilted grasses should also be avoided, as they may contain cyanide. Fruits of many wild grasses, as well as cultivated cereals, may have stiff hairs which can lodge in the throat, causing serious irritation. Such hairs should be removed somehow, by winnowing or burning." (Handbook of Edible Weeds, by James A. Duke, Ph.D.(botany), p. 86-7)

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 16, 1999

Answers

:::::sigh:::::

Looks like I'm prepped for longer than I thought! (Grin)

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), December 16, 1999.


Ackackackackack! Eve, yer always a inkspirashun to an old sailor man wut likes to eats his spinach! Ackackackackackack!

-- Popeye (Always@the.helm), December 16, 1999.

Hey, Pops!

You know, if you could get Wimpy to listen up, he may stop bugging you for money for burgers.

And just for you, another tip:

"One of the most available (and highly concentrated) emergency foods of the North, though one disagreeable to eat, is the pitchy balsam found in the blisters on the bark of Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea). This is reported to have saved lives in the woods...Presumably the southern Abies fraseri has similar possibilities." (Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America, by Fernald and Kinsey, p. 38, 80)

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 17, 1999.


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