A "weed" we have here across the pond too. We tolerate them as they are good for ground cover and look spectacular. I would never have thought of eating them.
This time of year, they are a special gift. I've been surprised over the years to learn how many flowers are good eating. We have tons of daylillies blooming now, and I'm going foraging for those next.
Ordered some Yucca this morning, as I did not know what to do with a weedy-and baron side of property. Hope they do well. Thank you. Good luck with your new grand baby arrival. Exciting.
Yes, THANK YOU for mentioning the difference between yucca and yuca (cassava)! I had wondered about that. I grew up eating cassava overseas. It had its own requirements for proper preparation.
Ya!! that cassava is in the Euphorbaceae, spurge family, so it has some special compounds that have to be cooked out. Were in S. America or the islands when you were young?
Years ago, I had gotten confusion from that spelling, and wondered if I could eat some Yucca roots, but learned that maybe they could go into my soap. :-D
I was at the far eastern end of Indonesia (West Papua). I've since learned that cassava grows in Africa too.
Cassava leaves tended to be on the menu at parties, but not usually the rest of the time because they were so time intensive to properly cook as a vegetable. We ate them cooked in coconut milk with lemon grass root and turmeric - after they were first cooked, drained, and rinsed three times to remove the arsenic.
Someone had to get the coconuts down from a tree and open them, and process them to make the milk as well as all the rest of it.
The most frequent way that we encountered/ate cassava root was very hot and a little charred and smoky from being cooked right in the coals of a fire, but we were also once served the most amazing little sweet cakes made with grated cassava root and the red sugar (gula merah) that you can only buy in Indonesia. I believe the woman who made them may have also used rice starch or overcooked rice as a binder. You just can't get that depth of flavor and richness from any other sugar, but organic coconut sugar would probably come the closest.
That’s amazing. I was wondering how often people could eat it. Maybe the preparation can be sandwiched into the daily routines. We got used to managing beans which need all kinds of soak time. The seasoning you mentioned reminds me of Thai food.
I bet you have some amazing stories for those of us in flyover USA. 👍🏼
Coconut milk, lemon grass, and turmeric are very common seasonings in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Indonesia even has their own special variety of lemongrass.
And yes, I really enjoyed living in Indonesia and have a lot of stories from my childhood. I love living in the U.S. too. I live in flyover country, too, so... 😄
True culture shock. Indonesia vs flyover country!!
How about the snakes? And the bugs?? Which place wins with respect to the variety? :-D
I remember getting called to catch a rat snake at the college where I both attended and worked, because this nun from Indonesia saw it, and was totally terrified of it. Just a little snake, about 5 feet long.
Indonesia definitely wins when it comes to the variety of bugs and snakes (and probably by sheer numbers as well), but flyover country wins the prize for most bug-splattered windshields. There aren't as many cars and trucks in Indonesia, or roads to drive them.
I'm honestly not sure which was worse: the bugs OR the snakes. We had some incredible bugs.
* Rainbow colored centipedes a foot long and as wide and thick as a belt strap. They somehow got in our home. TWICE.
* Huge rainbow colored hornets 2-3 inches long. Dad had to burn them out of a huge stump after dark one year.
* Stingless bees (yeah, who knew!), sweat bees, and lots of other wasps, hornets, and bees in between the itty bitty and the huge ones I already mentioned.
* Huge hairy spiders the size of a hand that would jump AT YOU if you sprayed them with enough bug spray
* Flying ants that came through the screens shedding their wings
* Fire ants bigger and badder than any we have here (but also fortunately much fewer/smaller colonies, and not given to flying into our home)
* Super stinky red ants
* Sweet lemon-flavored ants the locals like to snack on
* Cicadas, katydids, stick insects, and beetles, ant-lions, butterflies, moths.
We had house lizards which kept most of the bugs down in our houses...
As for the snakes,
On the north coast, we had coral snakes, sea snakes, a small sandy colored cobra, and death adders.
On the south coast, we also had a small, sandy colored, extremely poisonous snake (I don't know the species) that killed people sometimes if they couldn't get to the hospital and the bite zapper in time.
And we had a small sandy colored python about the same size as the other two snakes mentioned above (under 2 feet), and longer pythons (2 meters or so).
And then, we had taipans/ Papuan black snakes. Taipans are the worst. They are poisonous AND curious, and, aside from those at Senggo (where they are much appreciated on the local menu), they are not afraid of people and can be extremely aggressive and chase you if you aggravate them in some way.
They liked to hang out in pineapple bushes. Taipans were spotted in Dad's workshop, in Mom's laundry area, in my playhouse, on the airstrip, on the roads/paths, out on the river (taipans swim), in the wood pile by the saw mill, and trying to get into a nurse's back porch.
In the mountain ranges that run down the length of the island of Papua, they have a very rarely seen white cobra and more death adders, and out on the south coast by Pirimapun, they have the really large pythons. And I'm sure there are more snakes that I know nothing about.
Such a beautiful plant. Shared to tumblr
Thank , Granmabarb! Hope you get a chance to work with yucca.
A "weed" we have here across the pond too. We tolerate them as they are good for ground cover and look spectacular. I would never have thought of eating them.
This time of year, they are a special gift. I've been surprised over the years to learn how many flowers are good eating. We have tons of daylillies blooming now, and I'm going foraging for those next.
Ordered some Yucca this morning, as I did not know what to do with a weedy-and baron side of property. Hope they do well. Thank you. Good luck with your new grand baby arrival. Exciting.
ThankYOU!
Yucca plants are not very demanding. I bet you'll be glad you got them.
Yes, THANK YOU for mentioning the difference between yucca and yuca (cassava)! I had wondered about that. I grew up eating cassava overseas. It had its own requirements for proper preparation.
Ya!! that cassava is in the Euphorbaceae, spurge family, so it has some special compounds that have to be cooked out. Were in S. America or the islands when you were young?
Years ago, I had gotten confusion from that spelling, and wondered if I could eat some Yucca roots, but learned that maybe they could go into my soap. :-D
I was at the far eastern end of Indonesia (West Papua). I've since learned that cassava grows in Africa too.
Cassava leaves tended to be on the menu at parties, but not usually the rest of the time because they were so time intensive to properly cook as a vegetable. We ate them cooked in coconut milk with lemon grass root and turmeric - after they were first cooked, drained, and rinsed three times to remove the arsenic.
Someone had to get the coconuts down from a tree and open them, and process them to make the milk as well as all the rest of it.
The most frequent way that we encountered/ate cassava root was very hot and a little charred and smoky from being cooked right in the coals of a fire, but we were also once served the most amazing little sweet cakes made with grated cassava root and the red sugar (gula merah) that you can only buy in Indonesia. I believe the woman who made them may have also used rice starch or overcooked rice as a binder. You just can't get that depth of flavor and richness from any other sugar, but organic coconut sugar would probably come the closest.
That’s amazing. I was wondering how often people could eat it. Maybe the preparation can be sandwiched into the daily routines. We got used to managing beans which need all kinds of soak time. The seasoning you mentioned reminds me of Thai food.
I bet you have some amazing stories for those of us in flyover USA. 👍🏼
Coconut milk, lemon grass, and turmeric are very common seasonings in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Indonesia even has their own special variety of lemongrass.
And yes, I really enjoyed living in Indonesia and have a lot of stories from my childhood. I love living in the U.S. too. I live in flyover country, too, so... 😄
True culture shock. Indonesia vs flyover country!!
How about the snakes? And the bugs?? Which place wins with respect to the variety? :-D
I remember getting called to catch a rat snake at the college where I both attended and worked, because this nun from Indonesia saw it, and was totally terrified of it. Just a little snake, about 5 feet long.
Indonesia definitely wins when it comes to the variety of bugs and snakes (and probably by sheer numbers as well), but flyover country wins the prize for most bug-splattered windshields. There aren't as many cars and trucks in Indonesia, or roads to drive them.
I'm honestly not sure which was worse: the bugs OR the snakes. We had some incredible bugs.
* Rainbow colored centipedes a foot long and as wide and thick as a belt strap. They somehow got in our home. TWICE.
* Huge rainbow colored hornets 2-3 inches long. Dad had to burn them out of a huge stump after dark one year.
* Stingless bees (yeah, who knew!), sweat bees, and lots of other wasps, hornets, and bees in between the itty bitty and the huge ones I already mentioned.
* Huge hairy spiders the size of a hand that would jump AT YOU if you sprayed them with enough bug spray
* Flying ants that came through the screens shedding their wings
* Fire ants bigger and badder than any we have here (but also fortunately much fewer/smaller colonies, and not given to flying into our home)
* Super stinky red ants
* Sweet lemon-flavored ants the locals like to snack on
* Cicadas, katydids, stick insects, and beetles, ant-lions, butterflies, moths.
We had house lizards which kept most of the bugs down in our houses...
As for the snakes,
On the north coast, we had coral snakes, sea snakes, a small sandy colored cobra, and death adders.
On the south coast, we also had a small, sandy colored, extremely poisonous snake (I don't know the species) that killed people sometimes if they couldn't get to the hospital and the bite zapper in time.
And we had a small sandy colored python about the same size as the other two snakes mentioned above (under 2 feet), and longer pythons (2 meters or so).
And then, we had taipans/ Papuan black snakes. Taipans are the worst. They are poisonous AND curious, and, aside from those at Senggo (where they are much appreciated on the local menu), they are not afraid of people and can be extremely aggressive and chase you if you aggravate them in some way.
They liked to hang out in pineapple bushes. Taipans were spotted in Dad's workshop, in Mom's laundry area, in my playhouse, on the airstrip, on the roads/paths, out on the river (taipans swim), in the wood pile by the saw mill, and trying to get into a nurse's back porch.
In the mountain ranges that run down the length of the island of Papua, they have a very rarely seen white cobra and more death adders, and out on the south coast by Pirimapun, they have the really large pythons. And I'm sure there are more snakes that I know nothing about.