I have some experience with most of these.
Ive eaten medlars and had intended to plant some when I bought my farm but sadly it seems to be one of those things that I didnt get around to and doesnt make much sense any more.
I dont ever get much chickweed, that tends to go right into the chickens.
The lovage was doing really well. Very strong celery, mine didnt have any parsley flavor really. Mine were several years old when the farmer that rents some of my property came about 15 feet out of the normal field and ran through my medicinal and my cooking herb garden. The lovage along with most of it from that garden never came back, the wormwood has been escaping me and popping up everywhere ever since.
I was really disappointed by salsify. It was good enough for a vegetable especially if you are starving I suppose but I was really sold on this idea of an oyster flavored vegetable. Its not there, its not even vaguely there. Ive heard people claim that it has to do more with preparation and a particular stew. Pursued that but that turned out to be nonsense too. It just doesnt have enough of any distinct flavor for anyone to really like it.
Scorzonera and a couple of others fall into this category. They tasted well enough but didnt have enough flavor to make people champion its arrival on the table. Between that and people becoming too complacent, falling so far into normalcy bias, that the idea of a backup crop they one didnt have to worry about for when times went bad was just considered insane. Ive always been anti-lawn and very pro edible landscaping and some of these are interesting enough in appearance that they may be good for something like that if promoted the right way. Something like a jerusalem artichoke, its interesting to look at, you dont have to put effort into them, and they are waiting if you ever need them.
That doesnt explain turnips though. I dont know how many turnips the average American eats per year but Im that one weirdo doing some of the heavy lifting in those statistics. Easy to plant, grow almost anywhere and dont get lost to frost, get two different vegetables per planting, are flavorful (more than one flavor), and are easy to prepare.
Maybe the last two are part of the drawback. Baby turnips are wonderful just about any way but when eaten raw they are “like a box of chocolates”. Some are cabbagey, some are earthy, some have a mild radish bite, some are mildly sweet. Maybe not being able to rely on one flavor is a problem? Maybe the fact that farmers/distributors decided to screw over the consumer by trying to distribute and sell those giant punky softball sized ones finally got the better of people. When they get to that point they just really dont taste good. One in a giant pot of soup for cabbage flavor when you dont want leaves in it? A bit expensive for pig feed.
Maybe its because they werent all that easy to prepare for a long time due to the wax. What a giant PITA! You had to grow them yourself because they just werent worth all that extra effort if you bought them from the store. There are a couple of companies now bagging unwaxed ones but they tried to put oversized ones in. 4/lb is about the top of acceptable size for raw eating due to changes in texture and flavor but smaller is better. Those companies charge gourmet pricing though. If Im going to pay $5/lb then I might as well go get another pound of meat. There is a bulk producer that has shown up recently but they went right back to trying to sell pig feed and Im not buying that even for $.99/lb (and thats without the greens!).
They were apparently a staple for the early settlers.
Thanks! I’d read that medlars fell out of favor because of more economical substitutes. There at least used to be a fruit tree catalog out of Ontario that carried those, plus heirloom apple varieties (Sops of Wine, etc), buffalo berries, a non-edible version of elderberry.
My father bought some land at the edge of the Jersey marshes near Atlantic City. There were several fruit bearing native persimmon trees on the property. I tried some when color brightened in the fall but they were very astringent. One day my son was crawling around under a tree and picked up an overripe one that had fallen and was eating it. I then tried an overripe one and it was tasty. There are larger Asian ones sold in grocery stores. I wish I could grow them at my beach property with the Fig tree.