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Post by steev on Jun 27, 2012 0:39:26 GMT -5
There you go; that's what you'll have to eat when even your wife is starving. Save the ducks for last.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 27, 2012 5:12:40 GMT -5
Yep, kudzu, cowpeas, and duck for dinner. Cat tail flambe for desert.
We are surrounded by food should we really need it. I'm kinda thinking that the knowledge itself is the most valuable quality. I have to work at not letting myself get into a "tizzy" about it. Sometimes I become TO thoughtful about the future. LOL Highway to depression! Thank goodness it's paved with corn, potatoes, and plump pigeons everywhere. ;o)
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Post by steev on Jun 27, 2012 16:26:09 GMT -5
Although I've enjoyed cage-raised pigeon, I wouldn't eat an urban flying rat unless I was really on the edge.
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Post by castanea on Jun 27, 2012 19:53:23 GMT -5
I had pigeon in Egypt once. It was excellent.
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Post by steev on Jun 27, 2012 22:42:28 GMT -5
I've eaten it in Guatemala, very nice, just the right size for one person. No question, I will raise pigeons when I get to that level. The eggs are small, but not un-useful, hard-boiled. Some of the more difficult-to-deal-with grains that I fool around with would be just fine cracked for pigeon chow.
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Post by mountaindweller on Jun 28, 2012 1:29:38 GMT -5
In Greece (before they got mad and joined the EU) on the Island of Tinos they must have had a major business with pigeons. I don't know weather for eating or for the post but you can still see very artful dove cots there. Ducks quack Muscovies don't. So if any stranger would ever get in our property our ducks would make and enormous noise. Everything else with Muscovies is true, but I have an aesthetic problem here. If you have a bigger sized land and you don't want to feed a dog, apparently geese do the same job and they make good eating too. (Husband says too big to kill)
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Post by mountaindweller on Jun 28, 2012 6:55:48 GMT -5
You are right. I just read and article about Spain (not in English) and they wrote how much theft has risen in Spain. They steal machinery, fruits, slaughter calves etc., however usually the farmers live in the next village and the fields are somewhere else.
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Post by steev on Jun 28, 2012 12:52:01 GMT -5
Was just an article in today's news about trucks intercepted with 9 tons of stolen Spanish garlic.
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Post by mountaindweller on Jun 28, 2012 23:36:42 GMT -5
Bakc to the topic. There are some tree crops which comes in mind: Oaks, much of Europe ate oak nuts (or how these things are called), they did when they had nothing else. Apparently there are more and there are less edible oaks. Beech nuts were used too but the nuts are tiny, we used to eat them as kids (but we still had our dinner). Chestnuts in areas were the birds don't eat them. And Carob. Depending were you live you could always raise some of these trees in your garden and plant it on public land (make sure that it looks similar to those trees planted by the council). Oaks do grow very slow though. And there are a lot of edible aquatics not everyone knows them.
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Post by castanea on Jun 29, 2012 0:05:29 GMT -5
Oaks are a great stealth crop. Most people don't even know what acorns are, and if they did, wouldn't know how to make them edible anyway.
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Post by steev on Jun 29, 2012 0:30:51 GMT -5
The best way to make acorns edible is to feed them to deer or pigs; that takes care of the whole tannins issue.
For years, I've seen people gathering acorns here in urban Oakland. They've told me they boil them a couple times to wash out the tannin.
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Post by mountaindweller on Jun 29, 2012 2:57:26 GMT -5
Can't you grow truffles under oaks? Not really a stealth crop.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 29, 2012 5:08:51 GMT -5
We are growing truffles with oaks and hazelnuts. Absolutely a stealth crop. I don't know a single soul who would ever think to look for truffles. As for the acorns, there are a lot more native people around here and while fewer and fewer know about it, acorn use is not out of the question. Acorn flour is quite common in Korean cuisine though. I imagine there are other cultures that use them as well.
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Post by circumspice on Jun 29, 2012 12:01:37 GMT -5
We are growing truffles with oaks and hazelnuts. Absolutely a stealth crop. I don't know a single soul who would ever think to look for truffles. As for the acorns, there are a lot more native people around here and while fewer and fewer know about it, acorn use is not out of the question. Acorn flour is quite common in Korean cuisine though. I imagine there are other cultures that use them as well. Porcine critters love truffles. I understand that people started eating truffles because they observed pigs spending a great deal of energy to root them out. People trained dogs to sniff out truffles, too.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 29, 2012 15:25:02 GMT -5
Yep! Very true. Even so, truffles are under ground and have a very limited season. There are clear and obvious signs of the season, but very few people are aware of what they are and as you point out, you get MUCH better results with a trained dog. Dogs are better than piggies because doggies won't eat your million dollar crop ;o)
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