More wild foods: elm food, marshmallows and blancmange

I wrote this blog post two weeks ago but never posted it.

Following up on the Bulrush starch adventure, I proceeded to make more wild foods for my Sunday morning humanist group. This time I made blancmange, a pudding from irish moss seaweed, as well as 'elm food' from the inner bark of elm trees, and an attempt at marshmallows from the marshmallow plant.

I cleaned and chopped the marshmallows, then boiled them in some water. I intended to make the marshmallows like merangues. The water did indeed come out very stringy and slimy like egg whites, but when I tried to whip them like egg whites they simply did not hold air. Perhaps I would have had better luck with an egg beater. Euell Gibbons had good results slicing the roots, boiling them, then frying them with some onion (Stalking the Healthful Herbs, 193).

The seaweed and elm I boiled in milk, with added sugar. The irish moss gelled up nicely and ended up setting well. The elm stayed pretty liquid and was not pudding like at all. The general consensus was while they are all certainly healthy, the blancmange would have been even better with a touch of vanilla. One in our number works at a fast food restaurant, and we all pronounced the wild foods a good antidote or supplement to the fried diet.


Boiling in milk


Squeezing out seaweed slime


Elm bark processing 1


Elm bark processing 2


Elm final results, not pudding-like


Seaweed results, pudding-like

one more thread cut loose from the grid

I wrote the preceding blog post two weeks ago and then got extremely ill. So I'm posting them now. Partly as a result of my illness I've come to realise that my locavore practice is limited so long as I continue to shop at grocery stores.

So I'm going to try as far as possible to phase large chain grocery stores out of my life, to be replaced by Speerville, ordering coops, small grocery stores, farmers markets and ordering from farmers directly.

This afternoon as I was buying shampoo at a large chain grocery store (the kind I get is cheaper there) I realized that there is no local maritime producer of malt/dandelion coffee substitute. Yes, I quit coffee too. That and sugar might spell social suicide for me. But there is an opportunity for someone to create this beverage! Entrepreneurs, get on this now! Until you do I will be roasting my own dandelion coffee as I like to have something hot and bitter to drink in the morning.

Stay tuned for more on this adventure.