May 10th, 2010
Well, not a formal recipe. But a process.
I like to use Napa cabbage. It's cheap, tastes good and is easy to work
with. But other Oriental cabbage will work also.
Slice up a 2-3 lb cabbage and put into a bowl or crock. Add 1 tbsp salt
per lb (pure salt - no iodine or anti-caking chemicals). Fill the
bowl/crock with water past the level of the cabbage, put a plate on the
cabbage and weight it down so that all the cabbage is underwater. Try to
get all the air out under the plate. I'll be making some this weekend and
I can email you a photo if this is at all confusing.
I let my cabbage stand like this for 4-5 days to get a good lactic
fermentation. I usually cover it with a cloth to keep bugs out, but fruit
flies don't seem to like lactic fermentation. I skim the muck off as
necessary. It's harmless.
Then I drain and rinse the cabbage, keeping it soggy so I'll have juice to
cover it when I put it in jars. Then I chop the cabbage a bit more, add 1
tbsp good salt, 1 tbsp brown sugar, chopped hot peppers to taste, garlic,
leeks or other Allium genus to taste (regular onion doesn't seem right).
Garlic shoots might be available right now and they would work well. Ramps
are good if you can get them.
Sometimes I add grated ginger, sometimes I don't. I also use 3-4 tbsp fish
sauce per jar. It is available at oriental grocers. Daikon radish is good,
and I might even add carrots. Then press into jars (you'll be surprised
how that big Napa became so small when you do this). I let it sit with the
cap loose for 3-4 days before I eat it, but if I have more than what will
take to fill my jars, I eat it fresh. The optimum temperature for further
fermentation is around 55 F, but that might be difficult to achieve. I'd
alternatively refrigerate and leave out (don't tighten the lid past the
ability for CO2 to escape). I think the lactic fermentation keeps the bad
bugs out, but if it gets too hot and the vegetables aren't completely
submerged, you might get scum forming and mushiness of the exposed
vegetables.
If you need to add something with preservatives or vinegar (I can get
fresh fish sauce at a Vietnamese store, but you might only get it with
preservatives), then add it after letting the rest of the mixture sit for
3-4 days for optimum lactic fermentation. But the main thing is the
cabbage fermentation. Everything else is according to taste.
Here's what my fermenting Napa looks like. Cabbage held down by a plate
with a heavy bowl and a can of peaches. Not really pretty, but it works.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: homemade kimchee
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May 10th, 2010
I support the National Forest Service’s program of requiring permits to harvest certain plants, especially if they are resold commercially. But I really wish Pisgah National Forest would step into the last decade of the 20th century and use the internet. There is simply no reason why people should need to travel to one office to buy a permit from the one person who handles permit sales, who is not always available. Everybody else knows how to sell things online. I can buy a driver’s license, a fishing license, pay taxes and do most other transactions with state, local, and federal agencies online. But I can’t even get a free permit to harvest a few pounds of ramps for my own consumption from Pisgah without driving to their headquarters.
Also, I would advise them to give up any starry-eyed dreams of selling permits for the commercial harvest of wild mushrooms. It works well in Western national forests. But the East is an inconsistent producer of commercially valuable mushrooms.
It had been bone dry all spring when I arrived in the Asheville area. It rained all night before Jim and I went out to look the morning of April 25. We climbed up and down through some beautiful tulip poplar groves. There were Mayapple, cohosh, bloodroot, trillium and other plants one might expect to find in woods where morels normally grow. But not here, not now.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: morels, national forest service harvesting permit, pisgah national forest, pisgah national forest permits, ramps
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May 10th, 2010
I am writing these blog posts almost a month late. Better late than never, I guess.
I next went to Valdosta, GA, where I was raised, and met George, a lawyer and one of my oldest childhood friends, for a few hours of riding around in the country to see what we could see. We were looking for deer tongue, among other things, but neither of us could remember what it looks like. We found weeds that neither of us could identify. Zephyr lilies that I had never noticed as a child. An old pecan orchard that may have pecan truffles in the fall. We shall see. But no fungus of any kind. Too dry.
What is this?
Zephyr lilies
Old pecan orchard.
George gave me access to his farm west of Macon, GA, which I visited the next day. He said he had seen morels there before, but could not identify them at the time. The woods seemed perfect for morels. Yellow poplar rising 30-40 feet up a slope to a stream. But the leaves crackled beneath my feet. Too dry.
Buckeye on George’s farm.
I drove up the western side of GA to Dalton, spent the night and then drove across to the east along the edges of the Chatahoochie National Forest. I got directions to a poplar grove at the Ranger Station, but it was so hot and dry I didn’t bother to look. I drove on to NC and then home the next day. No morels or other fungi for the entire trip
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: buckeye, morels, pecan grove, pecan truffles, zephyr lilies
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May 10th, 2010
I got a very good rate at the Paramount Hotel in Gainesville, FL on a Sunday night. It is a nice place, has a friendly staff with great views of a lake, but I do not think it is ready to be a “conference center.” It is more for visiting alumni, Gainesville being a university town. You need to provide consistent high speed internet performance to attract the business traveler.
I had a simple dinner of fish and chips at the hotel restaurant. As you can see in the photo below, it was deserted. That is too bad because it has the best fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. I haven’t been to England in decades, but it easily beat what I remember being served anywhere on the island. I’d go out of my way to eat there again. Even though I do not recall wild mushrooms on the menu.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: florida, gainesville, hotel wifi, paramount hotel
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April 19th, 2010
Payne’s Prairie is noted for love bugs, but they were not out this warm day of April 11, 2010, when I visited the preserve. I first stopped here at this hippie general store left over from the 60′s in Micanopy, FL, a well preserved small town not far from Gainesville:
The proprietors, who are not left over from the 60′s, besides having good coffee and baked goods, had a fairly decent knowledge of plants and mushrooms. They said Payne’s Prairie Preserve was about the best place to look around, given the season and weather conditions. So I did, even though the preserve is another protected place where you cannot harvest anything.
Florida, like the rest of the East Coast, had a long cold winter, a dry spring, and premature hot spells in the early spring. I did not see anything of culinary or medicinal significance that I knew about and the volunteers working at the Preserve were not familiar with such plants at this time of the year.
I have photos that I can add upon request, but below is one that horse lovers will appreciate:
A pair of wild horses at Payne’s Prairie. I am not a good photographer, but I think I caught everything just right on this one.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: love bugs, micanopy, payne's prairie, wild horses
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April 18th, 2010
As I say on my homepage, the inspiration for “Eat More Toadstools” was the tag I bought from the Yearling Restaurant that says “Eat Mo’ Cooter.” It’s cracker slang for water turtle; in this case a soft-shelled turtle. I had a few as pets when I was a kid. They are fun to watch, and so ugly they are cute, but they aren’t exactly cuddly.
I visited the Yearling again. It is under new management and it has added music on weekends, but the food is as good as ever. The Cross Creek area has changed little. It is still mostly creeks, lakes and fishing camps, with a little farming here and there. Genuine backwoods Florida, and quite different from the densely populated areas.
Random people talking outside the restaurant after their dinner. It was getting dark and I wasn’t about to ask them to move, so I took the photo with them in it.
A fine meal of catfish, gator, soft-shell crab, and frogs legs, with collards and zipper peas on the side as well as a few hushpuppies. The restaurant was out of cooter and had been for months.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: cooter, cracker, cross creek, fl, yearling restaurant
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April 17th, 2010
eat oysters instead.
I took a journey south to the homeland to look for plants and mushrooms. It was hot and dry. Not a fungi did I spy, other than a few old polypores in Payne’s Prairie.
First stop for provisions: Ridgeland, SC. The town looks like a Mexican village. First I bought some fresh hot tortillas from this store (I can’t remember the name, but I have it and I will revise this post when I find it).
Then onto the seafood shop for oysters. I forgot to photograph it. I’m not a natural photographer. Consequently I forget to record many things.
Then on down the road, through the GA pineywoods, heading towards Gainesville, FL. Past Nahunta, GA, I spot an old roadside park with picnic tables. Local residents Staci and Ronnie are spending their Saturday doing community service fixing it up. Were they doing involuntary community service on account of being miscreants? Definitely not! They even asked the county for permission. I salute them for doing their part to make the world a better place to live… and wish I was a better photographer and had used my zoom.
I laid out my spread at a table.
Oysters, oyster knife, lemon tortillas, hot pepper sauce (it’s not Tabasco, but it’s what I had available). I wonder what the poor folks had for lunch.
Then on to Gainesville.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
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April 12th, 2010
For those of you waiting for blog posts I promised: you would think that a hotel that calls itself a “conference center” would offer its customers a good WiFi connection. But you might be wrong. I have been unable upload photos from here, and the posts need the photos. Maybe I’ll get better connections as I go up the road on my southern search for morels and wild plants of interest.
If you own a hotel or motel, this is 2010. People need good, high speed internet connections to conduct business on the road.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
Tags: bad internet connections at hotels, hotel wifi
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April 6th, 2010
On February 10, Jon Sloan of Bouncing Bear Botanicals was arrested on various drug charges. His side of the story may be found on his website (http://www.bouncingbearbotanicals.com/index.php?ref=508&affiliate_banner_id=2). I have ordered seeds from him over the years. My experience is that he delivers quality products and sends replacements if you are not satisfied.
Many plants, such as morning glories and San Pedro cactus, contain chemicals that may be on DEA’s Schedule 1… sometimes it is hard to tell, and you almost need your own personal lawyer to advise you. But the seeds and plants are readily available from many commercial sources. If every commercial establishment that sold morning glory seeds was raided and its assets seized, we could pay down the national debt. These companies have highly competent lawyers, whom one would think would advise them not to sell these plants and seeds if they are illegal to sell. Also, there are many seeds and plants containing substances that may be on DEA’s Schedule 1, which are allowed to cross the border in international commerce. Not to mention those that grow wild all over the country. And there are the chemicals that your own body makes.
There are also plenty of herbs on the market used for medicinal purposes, and whether they need FDA approval is something I do not know. It may all be in how the product is advertised. I know the FDA has a reputation for approving the “ask your doctor” drugs for every ailment that may or may not exist, but is still down on unpasteurized milk, even if it is produced under sanitary conditions. Everybody is entitled to his/her own view about how a taxpayer funded agency should operate. I once worked at a regulatory agency. There are many political pressures and the employees also have their own views about what is in the public interest.
I do not know Jon personally and I don’t really pay that much attention to every product he sells. I buy seeds and I grow plants. The FDA was involved in the raid, DEA was not. Maybe that tells you something, maybe it doesn’t. Kansas authorities were also involved. I know absolutely nothing about Kansas other than it’s flat and has lots of wheat and factory cows. Even if I were a lawyer, I’d probably know nothing about Kansas state law.
This is why I say you are on your own with any of the plants and herbs I write about. I just like to grow them, photograph them, harvest them in the wild where it is legal to do so, and eat those that are edible. As a former Boy Scout, I also like to “be prepared.” There are natural disasters, wars, terrorists, etc. What if any of us were in need of medical attention and could not get it? Falling back on old remedies might mean the difference between life and death, as would the ability to hunt and gather. However, I do endeavor to stay on the right side of the law whether I agree with it or not.
Eatmore T.
http://eatmoretoadstools.com
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