Eating Locally plus cactus tutorial

Hello all! I wanted to take a little break from the delicious recipes and focus on WEIRD FOOD. Yes, you read that right. Food that we don't really think we should eat but we do anyway (and I don't mean Dove bars).

  Let me say that my husband is the king of weird food. Maybe it's just me, but when you eat stuff out of the lawn, you're getting a little too organic. Let's take a tour, shall we?

This pretty little specimen is a wild cousin of the chamomile plant. It grows in our driveway. Hubby picks it, boils it for about ten minutes and has something like chamomile tea. Smells delicious. The kids love it. I say... weird food. My tea comes in a nice little Lipton packet like it should, thank you very much.

Tomatillos, in their husks. (*Waves at Jan and her pico de gallo.*)They weren't quite ready to come out, but inside, these little gals are like tiny green tomatoes. Weird Food Man roasts, then boils, then blends them (see, right there, you shouldn't have to cook it SO MANY TIMES) for salsa verde. Plus, the way he makes it is just.... hot.

This is our walnut tree. It gives us about 15 pounds of walnuts. Every fall I unleash my inner squirrel and harvest them by the bucket. We start when the peel is splitting, get the rind off, and let them air dry for two weeks, then spend a few days of agony getting them out of their stubborn little shells. It's as if they really don't want to be made into walnut chocolate chip cookies and walnut banana bread and spicy walnut trail mix.  Huh. Weird.

*hugs walnut tree* 

Onward! 

These are red currants. I'm sure you've heard of them. They make great jelly, sort of a cranberry-ish flavor. What? You can't seem them properly? Fine... I just thought everyone would enjoy that sweet face . :)

Better? What is weird about red currants is they just scream, "POISON, DO NOT EAT!" At least, they do to me. I can't look at them without checking over my shoulder for the villain who has dropped this poisonous berry on my plate and is waiting for me to eat it and DIE.

These are our seedless grapes.... tiny champagne grapes that grow golden tan and glow with the setting sun, giving off the sort of irresistable aroma that would make a vintner swoon. Oh, mercy, I want some NOW. Which is why this is here, in the weird food, because the above-pictured sweet faced child eats them months early. We have to have the whole row blocked off or he'll make himself sick. And I tried one. It tasted like a hundred year old pickle dipped in ear wax. Bad, bad, bad. But he loves them. He must have weird food genes.

Uh, this would be a better picture but they're not ready. This is Weird Food Man's Indian corn patch. He has about five different varieties and when they're ripe they look like this...

But here's the weird part. He doesn't eat the corn. He grows them for the SMUT. Seriously. That's what they call it in English. In Spanish it's much nicer. Huitlacoche. (WEET-LA-KO-CHAY) It's an Aztec delicacy, a fungus that grows on the corn kernals.

You can eat the fungus boiled or in tacos. It's apparently very, very good for you and expensive in some areas and in vogue in some restaurants. Don't Google if you haven't eaten lunch yet. I don't care how nutritious it is. It's gross and weird.

This one isn't so bad. This is panocha, or brown sugar made from yams. But can't they put it in a bag? Really, a hard cone of sugar that you sprinkle with water and let sit on the counter for a week or so? Sounds like a kid trap to me. Weird. Anyway, it goes with sweet rice and cinnamon. End result is tasty if you can get past THIS on your counter for a while.

Okay, truthfully, this isn't weird at all. It's gorgeous. Pretty baby! Look at you, so purple and heirloom-y shaped! Mmmmmm.... We'll talk later, you and I.

Next up is a squash blossom. Weird Foody soaks them in salted water (he says for flavor, I say to flush out the many-legged critters lurking inside) and then toasts in a corn tortilla.

We have plenty of these because he plants in the old Aztec way of Las Tres Hermanas (The Three Sisters). You plant your corn (smut!), and your squash (buggy flowers!) and your beans ('nuff said!) together, in one row. So the beans crawl up the corn, and the huge squash leaves shade the ground to keep the soil moist in the hot weather.

Now, we have some napolitos, or cactus leaves. Weird Food Man can't go a week without this stuff.

It takes about 30 minutes to skim the tiny slivers off. (There. That tells me you shouldn't eat it when it has to be DISARMED first.) Ouch.

Next is my prime argument against cactus. When you start cutting it, the cactus begins to OOZE.

It stretches. Think egg whites. Think aloe vera. Think UGH.

But we'll ignore all the signs that tell us DO NOT EAT THIS and slice some onion, some fresh garlic, and cut it into tiny pieces. Into the pot it goes, to boil! (Excuse my dirty floor. And my feet. And my husband's feet. It was a weird food family portrait.)

When it's done, you mix it with your big bowl of fresh beans (you have those on hand, from the pot you made this morning, remember?) and add some pickled peppers from the can on the left. Ta-dah! A weird dinner!

 (And hey, you can see my food in the background. COOKIES. Totally normal.)

Now, before you think I hate anything from cactus, I have to say, I do love a little bit of tuna. That's the fruit that is only in seasons at certain months of the year, usually the rainy season.  (Tuna! Really, that's what the fruit is called. Always makes me laugh. Who knew tuna came from cactus! )Here's some cut.

One red, one green. Looks gory, eh?

They're super, super tasty with a flavor that is hard to describe. Something between a cantaloupe and a kiwi. But lots of tooth-cracking seeds. You just have to suck off the good stuff and spit the rest. Not good for first dates. Unless you're cool with that.
Mmmmmm.....

So, now that you've graduated from the W.F. tour, go out and eat something UNUSUAL. And let us know what it was, and how you liked it.

This is from my 'Joy of Cooking'. How to skin a squirrel. If you ate something like this, please don't tell me. I'd like to think of you all as very sane, thank you very much. :)

Until next time!