Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: blam

Pinto beans and corn meal! I understand it was a life saver!


54 posted on 04/28/2012 6:55:03 PM PDT by hope
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies ]


To: hope

Even in the 1950s it was common for Oklahoma families to have pinto beans and cornbread for dinner once a week.

Maybe a hold-over...or a reminder.


78 posted on 04/29/2012 2:27:16 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies ]

To: hope
Pinto beans, corn bread and wild greens. Mustard, dandelion, creasies, even poke salad. Mustard and creasies grow all over the place, nine or ten months out of the year in most of the southeast. Mustard greens are stronger than turnip or collard greens, but roughly comparable.

Creasies are stronger still, pungent actually but many crave them, it's an acquired taste. The edges of fields, even your yard might be full of them, if you don't use herbicides, the look vaguely like a flat, lacy edged, leafy dandelion that never blooms out. They're decent for variety in a fresh salad, too, sort of peppery.

Dandelion and poke are spring and summer only, poke you have to be careful about, only picking the bright green young shoots, if it has the faintest hint of going purple like grown poke tends to be, it becomes toxic.

And then, if you're way back in the hills with a little altitude surrounding you, there are ramps, which are like a very strong, wild cross between shallots and garlic, they're only for the brave raw, more tolerable cooked but there is a very distinct smell that some dislike. A light touch with them is best, like anything that can overpower.

There are all sorts of forage foods surrounding you, most likely, you've just never been in a position to need them and identify them. Much of the inland southeast was barely out of frontier stage at the advent of Civil War, then Reconstruction, several financial panics and depressions, then the Great Depression. The knowledge was never lost, and people still eat it, because they want to eat it.

82 posted on 04/29/2012 2:58:22 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson