Saturday, January 15, 2022

Arisaema tortuosum cooking trial.

 

Ariasema tortuosum unripe fruit, stem and leaves visible at bottom of photo. 

The pea-sized unripe fruit of Arisaema tortuosum is eaten after washing, preserving in salt and cooking in North East India according to (apparently only one) report(1).There is also a report of the fruit (apparently ripe) being eaten after roasting (2). It is very rare to get edible fruit from a plant that grows in full shade like this one does. There is also a report that the peeled stem is edible, along with a warning to cook thoroughly to neutralize dangerous calcium oxalate crystals(3). 

I could not find any advice on how long you need to cook it for. I sampled the unripe fruit raw (without swallowing), it produced the characteristic feeling of needles piercing the skin on the inside of the mouth typical of uncooked aroids due to calcium oxalate crystals.

I tried boiling a few stems, leaves and fruit for 1 hour with 3 changes of water. Even after this time there was still a slight numbness and tingling in the mouth from eating them, but I was not noticeably harmed from swallowing a relatively small amount. The peeled stems were particularly good, well worth the fiddly task of peeling them, the leaves tasted good, like spinach, and the few unripe fruit seemed non-descript.

It is unclear if longer cooking is required or if they are eaten despite the slight numbness and tingling they produce as has reportedly done with the bulbs of its relative Arum italicum during famine (3). There is a report that although the tubers are eaten cooked violent illness has been known to follow eating a large amount of them (4) which may indicate not all of the calcium oxalate crystals are neutralized by cooking and they are normally eaten in moderation. 

Despite this plant's highly desirable ability to flourish in very shady locations I won't be eating much of it unless longer cooking, &/or other common techniques such as soaking and drying, prove to eliminate the slight numbing effect. Further experimentation will have to wait until next year's harvest. 

References.

1) The Wild Edible Plant Diversity of North-East India. Ashish Kar. 2009.

 2) An Ethnomedical Review on Arisaema tortuosum. Hemlata Verma, V K Lal, KK Pant and Nidhi Soni. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN PHARMACY, BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY Vol. 1(2), Apr- Jun, 2012. 

https://ijapbc.com/files/03-125.pdf

          3) A hundred years of change in wild vegetable use in southern Herzegovina. Lukasz Luczaj, Katija Dolina 

https://docksci.com/a-hundred-years-of-change-in-wild-vegetable-use-in-southern-herzegovina_5a62c443d64ab2c4e6b71ff5.html

"The memory of eating Italian lords-and-ladies (Arum italicum Mill.) starchy bulbs during famine in World War II is still present, though there was no consensus on the proper detoxification technique (the plant contains large concentrations of oxalates which can harm the digestive tract). Some people remember it boiled, others roasted or fried. The processing did not completely remove the stinging feeling. Hungry people swallowed the bulbs in spite of the unpleasant feeling in the throat."

4) Edible Plants of North West Himalaya (Uttarkhand) Rakesh Shad. 2015.

 


Thursday, January 6, 2022

Acanthus mollis as potential food


A common weed in Wellington suburbs is Acanthus mollis, Bear's Breeches.

There seem to be absolutely no references* old or new to it being used for food despite being well known in Europe for thousands of years at least, noted as the inspiration for Ancient Greek ornament.

However I've found if the immature flowers are removed, the top few inches of the flower stem is quite edible. It is bland in flavor and crunchy raw, when boiled it is rather floppy but tastes good, like mild asparagus. It is not produced in great quantity compared with the size of the plant. The flower stem further down, surrounded by prickly mature flowers, is very slimy and tough once mature. When immature the peeled core of the inflorescence stem is pretty good to eat, if slightly mucilaginous.    

I also sampled the peeled core of the leaf stem base raw. It is white, produced in reasonable quantity, bland in flavor with a very slight bitter aftertaste, crunchy, and without fibers. It is a bit like water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis), could potentially be used the same way I'd say. I've not tried cooking it yet.

I could find no reference to it being toxic but it probably should be treated with some caution as there seem to be no ethnobotanical or historical references to it being used as food at all, not even as famine food. It has however been consumed for medicinal purposes ( https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Acanthus+mollis ).

*Since writing this a few months ago I've noticed Alejandra Robles has reported using the roots and stems as food but considers this experimental. (West Coast Food Forestry. 2005.)

https://www.academia.edu/34135104/West_Coast_Food_Forestry?email_work_card=view-paper