Knotweed on Vimeo

This is a partial episode (because my camera died) on how to pick the invasive knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) for use in soup. See previous posts tagged soup and knotweed for recipes good and bad!

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

Knot so bad soup!

Earlier I reported on a soup with knotweed that was knot so good. Alright, it was heinous. So it was to my surprise that I made a soup with knotweed on Friday that was really pretty good. It was also a little surprising that I was able to get a dozen or more takers on eating the soup with me, and they enjoyed it too!

Friday morning I collected knotweed and garlic mustard from the West Meadow Beach area. I chose this spot because it is closed to automobiles and there is little chance of pesticide or herbicide use. Its also nice to clear out invasive species from an area that is undergoing ecological restoration, although I can say that my collection is not likely to have much of an impact. I was actually surprised to find only one patch of knotweed, but this patch (probably a single clonal individual) was large enough to provide me with a grocery bag full of young tender stalks.

I was much more selective about which stalks I collected this time: stalks that were 6-18 inches and with a diameter at least the size of my pinkie. I was also a little more selective about what parts I used when I chopped them up. First I stripped the leaves and took off the bits right at the base of the leaves (these may actually be the most tender parts, so I might try them again in the future). I also discarded the fattest parts at the bottom of the stalks, and I discarded a section if the stalk started splitting lengthwise as I chopped. I think this was part of why the soup was more successful.

The soup was also totally different from before. I elaborated on Steve Brill’s recipe, because I didn’t have enough knotweed (being so selective left me with only 4 cups of chopped stems), and I wasn’t very keen on the combination of the knotweed with the tofu spread from the previous experience. Instead I made a big pot of vegetable broth (36 cups of water and 18 cubes of veggie bouillon; I was preparing to feed as many as 30) and brought it to a boil. I sautéed a couple of chopped onions, a couple cloves of garlic, and 8 sliced carrots in olive oil and then added them to the pot, along with 3 chopped yukon gold potatoes. I waited a few minutes for the carrot and potato to cook and soften, and then I decided that there was way too much onion in there, so I used a strainer to remove most of them (they still provided flavor, but they didn’t get in the way of the other good stuff coming). I added 2 cans of corn and 1 can of whole peeled tomatoes (I broke up the tomatoes first and added just a little bit of the juice from the can). Last I added about 4 cups of chopped knotweed, a tablespoon or so of sugar, returned the soup to a boil, and then let it cool.

Unlike the other recipe, this one was not overwhelmingly “knotweed-y” and any odors particular to the weed were masked by the other ingredients. This isn’t to say that you couldn’t taste the knotweed; it retained its tang, but delivered it most when you had a piece on your spoon. I served this soup with another invasive species as a garnish: Garlic mustard Alliaria petiolota. I just chopped up the young leaves and flowers ad offered them raw.

Breaking the Rules

I have to make soup for my department tomorrow…. I am very tempted to break the challenge. But we’ll see what happens.

Update: Yep. It happened. Last night we had a send-off for a couple of friends. Even though I was able to get my friends to buy me a couple, I eventually bought a drink for a friend (and she one for me), $6. Also, this morning, I stopped at the grocery and spent $7 on vegetable bouillon and a loaf of bread (see next post).

The challenge slogs forward…

A couple nights ago I roasted artichokes, fried eggplants, and made some pasta. I took out some frozen pesto that was made last summer from my farm share. I had it for dinner (well, I ate while I made it) and then again for lunch. Last night I made some bread and, come to think of it, I guess I skipped dinner. This morning I made up for that with some of the fresh bread, a banana, bacon and egg, milk and coffee. Still no purchases made and I am finding that I’m not even tempted, but that may change over time!

The salad greens in our garden are looking awesome as are the potatoes, and the temperature didn’t drop last night as much as we feared it would.

Day Two (and the end of day one)

Last night I went to the bar with my bandmates and abstained from purchasing food and drink. I did spend $1 on the jukebox and I did eat one chicken wing that was offered to me… out of pity. At band practice I consumed a typical graduate student dinner of doritos, dried papaya, mixed nuts, watermelon, and beer (Saranac Pale Ale and Smuttynose IPA). This morning I had some bacon, an egg, and coffee. For lunch a salad: lettuce, sprouts, tofu spread, apple, sesame tahini dressing. More Girl Scouts Cookies too. Tonight I plan to roast artichokes and do something with eggplants and tofu. Hopefully I’ll make enough to eat it for a few meals!

Updates: Kali Mae also plans ahead. Erik’s flu gives him an edge. And Princessofntn joins the challenge by showing the baseline.

Erik’s Challenge, Day 1 and Knot-so-good soup

This morning I had strawberries and coffee. When I got done with a run (it’s been pouring today) I scarfed some Girl Scouts Cookies (tag-a-longs). For lunch, more Girl Scouts Cookies (this time do-si-dos), a cheese sandwich with home made bread, NY cheddar, and mayo, and a raw green pepper stuffed with lettuce, alfafa sprouts, and a spicy tofu spread. Here’s the recipe for the tofu spread, but I didn’t have lecithin granules and I added walnuts, flax meal, and a little balsamic vinegar.

I found the recipe for the tofu spread because I tried to make a soup with Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) yesterday. The Wild Man Steve Brill has a recipe for Knot Soup that calls for the tofu spread, but I ended up using a recipe from Euell Gibbons’ Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which is just a quick boil of the young shoots, then puréed with a little butter, salt, and sugar. The result was unappealing in sight and odor. The taste wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t too great either. Even though I had used shoots that were between 8 inches and 16 inches, there was already considerable amounts of fibrousness remaining. Mixing in the tofu spread and dipping with bread made it more palatable.

I haven’t totally given up on knotweed soup. I am going to try the purée again, but squeeze it through cheesecloth (since it was too viscous to make its way through a metal strainer!). I am also going to try Steve Brill’s recipe, but that requires that I purchase (or make perhaps…) some vegetable stock. And since this is the week of Erik’s challenge, purchasing veggie stock is a big no-no.

Updates: Reports on Day 0/Day 1 for Erik and Kali Mae

Erik’s Challenge

My friend Erik has decided that his response to the clamor over the growing food crisis is to stop buying food and simply eat what he has been accumulating in his storage space. His freezer is packed to the gills, so he thinks he can last quite a while!

In solidarity, Thom, Kali Mae, and I are joining Erik by eating only what we have at home. No eating out, no purchasing new food, for as long as we can. I was able to get Erik to agree that I can forage for and consume “wild” things.

This spring I have eaten ferns (unidentified species), Garlic Mustard (Alliaria
petiolatum) and Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) and I plan to keep eating wild plants as I confirm the edibility of things and have time to collect and prepare them. I’ll try and include recipes and videos here as I am able.

Blooms in the Open Ocean

Here’s a set of articles on iron fertilization science by a science writer named Hugh Powell (he wrote parts 1-5). I worked for Hugh when he was a field biologist in western Montana, studying the dietary peculiarities of the Black-backed Woodpecker by picking through piles of bark to count and identify wood-boring beetle larvae by the hundreds. Those were great field experiences. The subject he’s writing on here is a topic that I cover in the ecosystem ecology course that I teach. Hugh has been writing in several places, apparently, including this nice blog here, and over here for the smithsonian magazine. Good work, Hugh!

Under different circumstances, and for different organisms, different nutrients limit the growth of individuals and hence populations. Iron is an important cofactor in the enzymes of organisms, and it can be a growth-limiting element for plankton in the open oceans. These areas are iron-limited because they are too far from continents for significant amounts of iron-rich dusts to reach and there is little upwelling of nutrient-rich waters from the deep ocean.

Why should we care about the iron limitation of microorganisms out in the middle of the ocean? Some scientists have suggested that relieving the iron deficit will stimulate phytoplankton blooms and solve, in part, the human caused atmospheric increases of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Phytoplankton are carbon-fixing photosynthesizers that sink deeper into the ocean after they die. If phytoplankton productivity is stimulated by the addition of iron, more carbon should be pulled from the atmosphere into the ocean and sunk in the bodies of the plankton. Thus, on a large scale, iron fertilization could remove greenhouse gases enough to mitigate the climate. Unfortunately, most of the productivity in the phytoplankton is consumed by other organisms (bacteria and zooplankton) that respire carbon dioxide, so the climate mitigation strategy isn’t extremely efficient at this stage. The state of the science is to find out how to increase the efficiency of sinking that carbon. Read Hugh’s articles for much more detail.