>Kirt:
>Or put another way: wild foods are more nutritious so we would get the stop
>faster. This seems very plausable. And has been my experience exactly with
>wild RAF and wild fruit. (Maybe wilder is the proper word.) But again
>veggies are weird. I would barely eat any wild veggies by pleasure.
>Sampling wild vegetation is an interesting experience. It teaches one about
>taste changes! Walk thru a wilderness and sample any and all vegetation
>(esp those leaves you mention) and there is very little that has ever
>tasted decent to me for more than a short mouthful. I guess the real test
>is to eat only wild veggies for months or years at a time and see if one
>would get "transistioned" from hybrid veggies! :)

>Still, I get the sense that the wild veggies are so generally strong and
>unpleasant not so much because the are so nutritious (which they are by
>analysis relative to store veggies) but because they have something in them
>to keep them tasting not-so-good so every animal in the world doesn't eat
>them all. There is some research showing a hell of a lot of naturally
>occuring pesticides in veggies. Perhaps in our domestication of veggies
>(and hybridization towards blandness) we have been breeding out the worst
>n-pests along with much of the nutrition. And: does cooking make these
>foods and their nutrients more available?


(Have no idea what does `cunundrum` mean, but who cares :-))

I think you better know wild plants well before you start eating
them  - even experimentally. E.g. leaves may be poisonous but
root of the same plant nutritious and delicious; many herbs have
strong medicinal effects and naturally, it`s not wise to eat them
big amounts.

Unfortunately we'e lost our instincts so we can`t identify edible
plants (or edible parts of plants) instinctively in the nature anymore.
Of course, taste tells something, but not enough; and who knows if
our sense of taste is distorted? BTW, some _raw_ wild plants taste
bitter, but cooked - unfortunately ;-) - palatable.

Another thing:
I`ve detected that root crops, especially carrot as well as wild
berries, such as raspberry, taste the sweeter the norther they
are grown. I`ve thought the reason for that is the day length
or temperature. My theory is that ripening takes place more
slowly here in the north and - somehow - as a result there
is tastier crop. Does this make any sense? Any ideas?

Tiina Makela || [log in to unmask]