Tiger Lilies, Free Food for the Foraging, and #ShoutOuts to fellow Steemians

in #food5 years ago (edited)

Eat lilies, but not Easter lilies,

or "you had better hope that the Resurrection is real…"
--Hank Shaw, DINING ON DAYLILIES

source

Late to the party again,

I discovered via @crescendoofpeace that "ditch lilies," that orange day lily known as the tiger lily, is so eminently edible, some people would raise it as a food crop. And I have uprooted and composted hundreds! HUNDREDS!!! of these lilies.


"Daylilies are not only edible, they are spectacular. After sampling the flowers, flower buds, young stalks and root tubers, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re so tasty I may grow them as a food crop.

"Let me start by saying I am talking about the common daylily, Hemerocallis fulva, as well as its various Hemerocallis friends and relatives; there are thousands. What I am most definitely not talking about are bona fide lilies, like the Easter lily, which, if you are unfortunate enough to eat, you had better hope that the Resurrection is real… " Hank Shaw, DINING ON DAYLILIES

Visit Hank Shaw's site

for instructions on cooking and eating. E.g., the stalks aren't so great, the blossoms are ok, but the tubers!

Think really young fingerling potatoes, only with a sweetness to them.
Butter, salt, saute. Only I added some black pepper this time. I like black pepper on my potatoes, so I reckoned I’d like this, too.

> More Recipes and Information about Foraged Foods


See also

If You Can’t Beat ’em, Eat ’em

By Marie Viljoen

This article appears in May/June 2012: Issue No. 23 of Edible Manhattan.


Readers, if you are like me, you unlikely to click on these links, so I'll post a few excerpts:

>"Sustainable foraging focuses on a world I have come to love: invasive weeds."'

These are aggressive, successful and sometimes delectable plants that have arrived from another clime and made themselves very much at home, to the detriment of local plant populations. I am here to help. I will eat the weeds—as should you. Together, as gardeners, foragers and cooks we can turn away from weed control with poison and turn toward our chopping boards.

> Although often mistaken for an American wildflower,

day lilies came from East Asia via England, escaping Colonial gardens early in their American life, and naturalizing here, growing in tall, bullying clumps that precluded more timorous native species. Day lily is the common name for the multitudinous genus Hemerocallis, which comprises over a dozen species and tens of thousands of cultivars, gaining new ones every season. Darlings of the horticultural trade, they ...grow from coast to coast—and across Manhattan, in parks, courtyards and even on rooftops. All of them are edible.

> And so much is edible in our urban landscape:

lovely local ephemerals such as violets, the delicate flowers aptly named “spring beauties,” subtle trout lilies, as well as the slow-growing woodland carpets of wild ginger. But it is a hard and greedy heart that unearths clumps of these indigenous plants from a park: Wildflowers are under enough pressure within the city without having to fend off foragers, too. Personally, I would thump such an adventurer over the head with my handbag, in which I often carry several heavy lenses for my camera.

Steemit's own @fernowl13

posted last year about Edible Daylilies
and I encourage you all to read her informative post.

#NowFollowing Denise Freeman, aka fernowl13

#TheAlliance, #Homesteading,

and other Steemit groups are out there at the touch of your fingers on the keyboard (or smart phone).

Let us educate ourselves

and share what we learn with others. This is something Steemians do eagerly, enthusiastically, and helpfully!

@papa-pepper

is another excellent resource-person for Steemians seeking to learn new/old things. (New to us, old to our ancestors.)

EDIBLE WILD FLOWERS - EASTERN REDBUD

In case you don't click on that link,

I will oblige you with a few more resources found in @papa-pepper's post. E.g.

Learn more and apply here

@mariannewest

is one of the first people I discovered for homesteading resources and #TheAlliance. I sometimes forget that, caught up as I am in @freewritehouse and all the fun of that writing community.

I could go on all day

discovering, re-discovering, and directing others to all our great human resources at Steemit.
Share them. Resteem them. Not everyone can upvote, but comments are free (more or less). I know. Nothing is totally cost-free in the cyber world, and there's no free lunch. Well, there is if you're willing to work for it - digging up tiger lilies is no easy task! My squat-muscles are feeling the burn after all my digging this month.

The Carnage! The Waste!

What have I done? I should be rinsing and eating these tubers!

Thank you for reading,

and thanks to all who take the time to comment. Nobody tops @crescendoofpeace for helpful, informative, fascinating, fun (but sometimes poignant) comments that are worthy of anthologizing.

Lurkers, you have your place,

but recently I've learned that certain Facebook "friends" started reading my Steemit posts. I had no idea anyone outside of Steemit was reading; how would I? No icon indicates how many people read my posts. The comment box would suggest that nobody in my neighborhood reads me at Steemit. So, in a dark moment when I needed to vent, I stupidly commented in the Reply section of my #SaveTheBluebells post that my neighbor has been snarling at me, and her daughter (or some other mutual "Friend" from Facebook) copy-pasted my comments to the neighbor, who now had legitimate grounds for complaint against me. I spoke ill of this unnamed #Neighbor in a public venue, but only because (1) Who at Steemit knows where I live or what my neighbor's name is and (2) who at Steemit #cares what her name is? My point was that this neighbor watches and judges and accuses me, and in suggesting I have my priorities on weeds at the expense of spending time with my grandchildren (she knows the sad history of why I don't get to see them often), I blew up. Behind the Scenes, or so I thought. Her lurking daughter/unidentified "mutual friend" is welcome to read my stuff. In future, I will remember that venting on any form of social media is dangerous and ill-advised.

But, hey, even posting information on Facebook is dangerous because the neighbor would publicly call me out and dispute information I post, on anything from ivermectin for herding dogs to my personal opposition to killing opossums (who eat 5,000 ticks a year each!)--as if I were accusing her of possum-killing (or condemning her now that she volunteered the information that she has no qualms about the killing of nuisance-animals)--

As if my opinion matters,

as if holding a different opinion from someone else means I'm criticizing or condemning those who disagree.

Life is too short

for me to engage in petty squabbles or let the tirades of an angry woman get to me. She knows I don't have the granchildren at hand to hug and enjoy, but two collies are here to romp through the meadow, weltands, timber, and savannah, sniffing deer, fetching sticks, living in the moment.

Thank You, Steemit, for Positive Attitudes and Helpful, Constructive Teamwork,

and thanks again to Marianne West and all those who take a constructive, cheerful approach to life!

Before we left, Leah and I planned the next road trip. Colorado Springs, we will be there in June!! @enginewitty and @snook. Get ready for double trouble 😂 If you want to come, check it out.

Sort:  

I'm reminded of my mom and late sister, during a particularly tough economic time, when they were sitting together in their apartment when the electricity was turned off.

After a pause, my mom, who rarely cursed, turned to my sister, and said: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

They both doubled over laughing.

One of the biggest advantages of turning 50, to me, was how freeing it was to simply stop giving a crap what anyone else thinks if me or my actions.

Don't approve of me? Cool. No harm, no foul. I approve of me, and frankly, that's all the approval I need.

And on those occasions when I don't approve of me, when I've actually done something to apologize for, I . . . gasp. . . drum roll please . . . apologize. Without fanfare.

Because that's what functioning adults do. We take responsibility for our actions, apologize when we're wrong, and don't worry about much else. Because, in the long run, it's all small stuff.

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YES!!! One of the women who survived the Titanic said that: Don't fret the small stuff, it's pretty much all small stuff.
I'm internalizing this and I would make a wall plaque out of it except I've seen so many plaques and memes, they become plagues and reminders of how I keep failing to be the bright, cheery bringer of joy to all.
How can we clone your wisdom and innoculate humanity with it?

This one's not my wisdom, but taken from the title of a book. ;-)

And it's just a guess, but the woman on the Titanic may have been Molly Brown, who had enough wisdom and humor for the whole damn ship.

I've read several books about her over the years, but don't recall that quote, but of course it may well have been another woman.

And I've always meant to read the book, but then again, perhaps the title is enough. ;-)

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The unsinkable Molly Brown had her share of great, quotable quotes! The woman I'm thinking of was one of the last two surivors, almost a hundred years old at the time, and I saw her interviewed (Eva....?) and she said "it's all small stuff." Others have said similar things. She may not have coined the phrase. Looks like Richard Carlson gets credit for it:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/164688-don-t-sweat-the-small-stuff

“Don't sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff.”

Interesting!

Man, it's really a shame that some people have so little life of their own that they take the time to focus on being hateful. What a waste of energy.

That said, I can relate, and found myself unfriended by my own sister for calling her out (nicely) on her ongoing hate speech. Sigh.

If nothing else, it immediately reduced my stress level, so I suppose I should be grateful. ;-)

But it's sad when supposedly grown people consciously choose to be so "fragile" that they can no longer take part in polite discourse. Too many Americans seem to be nothing more than overgrown children, and misbehaving infantile children at that.

Ah well, their loss.

So you're digging out lilies and I'm trying to bring in some more. Isn't that how it usually goes?

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LOL! What I'm digging up and discarding, you're planting. I'd love to ship them all to you. ; And I can hardly believe you have a sister so unlike you, until I stop to think that I do too. But you --unfriended by my own sister for calling her out (nicely) on her ongoing hate speech--are right, that it's more peaceful, at least, to be spared the drama of fragile people who act infantile (my un-named neighbor, ahem, whose daughter may be reading this and rushing to report back to her). Gaaawwwd, do I ask for trouble sometimes, or what.... *Mortification of Silence is so hard for me to practice. All the more reason I should keep trying!!!!

Do what now? You coming to the Block Party??? And I had no idea that tiger lillies were edible. They have them all over the place in the ditches and down in my fields. May have to round some up!

Be sure to inbox me on discord when you have time.

I haven't been on Discord for months - and I don't even know offhand which Block Party you mean. The one in Denver, CO, sounds fun. The big to-do in Poland last year also sounded awesome. Ok, off to see if I can find my password to get back into Discord....

Long read, but good stuff @carolkean. Upvoted. ♥

♥♥♥ Thank you Jerry! ♥♥♥
I never expect anyone to read an entire post of mine. I bullet-ize a lot for the speed-readers and skimmers. :)

Oh duh, that was a quote from her blog😋🤣

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