Eat the weeds/foraging

[Ty Korrigan]

Aside from a few select fungi and blackberries, I've not really bothered actively looking for wild foods though I'm considering giving pignuts a serious try.

A recent thread on a French gardening forum for Brits has a discussion on Japanese Knotweed with a few people advocating eating it.

A quick Google brings up endless articles and blogs on the health benefits of knotweed.

If it is really so nutritious, why is it not commonly sold in our Supermarkets? 

Anyone here regularly consume knotweed?

I understand it tastes much like Rhubarb so hardly likely to be a side dish with a main course.

                 Stuart

 

 

[Paul in the woods]

JKN will grow from the tiniest shoot so it would not make sense to sell it 'live'. If you forage it you should also take care, I'm not sure if there are even legal implications of bring some home for the pot in the uk. 

 

It does make a good wine I'm told, as you say like rhubarb. If you eat it you might wish to also be careful with its oxalic acid content.

 

https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?LatinName=Polygonum+japonicum

 

 

[AHPP]

Supermarkets selling knotweed would be like them selling pufferfish, not worth the liability. Kitchen scraps thrown out for chickens or composted could cause loads of damage.

[Steven P]

If it was cooked up and sold as a prepared that might work? Or wine.

[AHPP]

2 hours ago, Steven P said:

If it was cooked up and sold as a prepared that might work? Or wine.

 

Someone would have to grow the fields of it. Their neighbours would kick off. The road transport would need bulletproof tarping to make sure you didn't lose any on the verges. Then the jam/wine factories would have to be dead careful with waste. etc etc. Just not worth the risk when you can eat/drink other things that won't ruin someone's drains, foundations etc.

[5thelement]

I heard the Yanks go out in large groups and forage JKW to eat instead of spraying to control it.

It can be used in savoury or sweet dishes and was on the menu at a vegetarian restaurant I ate at in Brighton a few years back, pretty good too, a bit lime meets rhubarb.

[Squaredy]

5 hours ago, Ty Korrigan said:

Aside from a few select fungi and blackberries, I've not really bothered actively looking for wild foods though I'm considering giving pignuts a serious try.

A recent thread on a French gardening forum for Brits has a discussion on Japanese Knotweed with a few people advocating eating it.

A quick Google brings up endless articles and blogs on the health benefits of knotweed.

If it is really so nutritious, why is it not commonly sold in our Supermarkets? 

Anyone here regularly consume knotweed?

I understand it tastes much like Rhubarb so hardly likely to be a side dish with a main course.

                 Stuart

 

 

This world is full of things that grow wild that can be eaten.   I admit not many are as prolific as Jap Knotweed is in the UK.  But as well as the problems already mentioned, culture has much to do with it.  I don't see UK supermarkets selling many crickets or much horse meat either.

 

In the developed world we have mainly grown up with a very narrow set of tastes.  It must have been so different when we had to hunt and forage to survive.  Indeed scientists now say we became much shorter and didn't live as long when we switched from hunter gathering to farming.

[5thelement]

8 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

This world is full of things that grow wild that can be eaten.   I admit not many are as prolific as Jap Knotweed is in the UK.  But as well as the problems already mentioned, culture has much to do with it.  I don't see UK supermarkets selling many crickets or much horse meat either.

 

In the developed world we have mainly grown up with a very narrow set of tastes.  It must have been so different when we had to hunt and forage to survive.  Indeed scientists now say we became much shorter and didn't live as long when we switched from hunter gathering to farming.

Modern day America chooses to eat less than 0.25% of the known edible foods on the planet.

[scbk]

55 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

But as well as the problems already mentioned, culture has much to do with it.  I don't see UK supermarkets selling many crickets or much horse meat either.

Horse meat, yes please, I love a good beef lasagne!

[5thelement]

I do like to look around the meat section of the large supermarkets here playing ‘guess the animal’ with the kids.
 The French don’t disguise anything and use everything, some things are completely unidentifiable, but horse & rabbit are common, along with gargantuan duck breasts.