This month's crafty adventure centers on nuts, but I'll bet you've not had these nut before. Today we are going to figure out if we can roast and eat a wild food: beechnuts!
The American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) produces small nuts inside of a scaly covering. These scaly nut clusters drop off in Autumn and it just so happens that one of the trails I walk was full of them! Most of the time, the nuts drop out of the scales on impact with the ground, but sometimes the two remain intact. What you see here is the scale cluster surrounding the nut shell. Under the scales and then under the shell is the edible golden nut.
It took me about and hour to collect as many as you see here. I didn't weigh them before roasting because I didn't really care how much the shells weighed. Once I got them home, I used a little quality control to remove any nuts that had cracks or tiny holes in their shells. This was a sure sign of insects boring inside to the nut meat.
Since I couldn't find a recipe on roasting beechnuts, I used a peanut roasting recipe as my basis. Given that the beechnuts are much smaller than peanuts, I used the lowest temperature of all the recipes and shortened my roasting time by a little. My goal was to roast them long enough that the papery membrane between the nut shell and the nut meat would turn brittle and rub away like it does on a peanut. I also hoped that the shell itself would get a little more brittle because cracking a raw beechnut was like trying to crush granite pebbles. I ended up roasting the nuts at 325 degrees F for 20 minutes. A couple of them popped as they baked, but mostly all was quiet. The smell of them roasting was something similar to roasted hazelnuts or hickory.
When they had cooled, I tried cracking a few open. Most had nothing inside them at all! Only the very biggest nuts had any real nut inside the shell and those were very small -- about the size of a shelled sunflower seed. The 20 minutes of roasting turned them medium brown and brittle, rather than golden brown. The outer shell was so hard that I ended up using a pair of standard pliers to squeeze them open. No matter how careful I was, I could not prevent myself from pulverizing the tiny roasted nut inside. Its possible that with a lighter roast and more care, I could produce enough nuts to make a mouthful, but overall, the yield was not worth the rather involved effort.
So, is this crafty adventure a total wash? Nope!
The nuts went back into the oven at 400 degrees F for an additional 15 minutes to really dry them out. After 5 minutes, they all started to pop! So I took them out, cooled them slightly, and started them drying again, but this time at 250 degrees F for 30 minutes. My goal wasn't to eat them but to make them decorative. They had just changed function. My first thought was that they would be great as a natural bead, because I have a prayer cord project on my slate, but they are too brittle to pierce with a needle; they break all apart. It's possible that they will work as beads if I drill tiny holes in them with my Dremel. I will test that and get back to you. But for now, pushing a needle through them makes them fall apart.
Another use could be inside a shaker; I have a gourd that is soon to be a shamanic rattle and it could use some noisy material inside. I will let you know how I use them, but rest assured that they will have a great finish.
Showing posts with label Connecting to Land. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Connecting to Land. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Home Tree Map
I very much enjoy spending time outdoors. Doing so puts my mind at peace as if I am supernaturally zapped by some Zen energy. Sometimes I go outside - even if it's blistering hot - to feel revitalized when something has kept me indoors too long. Being in my yard makes me feel spiritually connected to it. I know that a similar effect happens on a larger scale when I spend more time within my town (enjoying its event offerings and people). As I spend time in my yard, my brain comes up with fun activities for me to deepen my connection to my environment. Since I love botany, herbs and working with all kinds of plants, I knew I would have fun with this month's exercise: creating a tree map of my yard.
Of course, I started with a key or guide to the trees in my area. After moving here, I never got around to buying a local plant guide. But I'm lucky to live near all the overachievers who attend Duke University, so I was able to find some great keys through their online projects. Some of the trees were very difficult due to varietals and hybrids.
Once I knew what was growing, I started to draw it out. As I was drawing, I tried to imagine that I would have to hand this guide to someone who didn't live here who had to identify all of the trees. Even still, I'm sure the map has its confusing areas. Though I used graph paper, my drawings are not to scale. My property is wedge-shaped with a stream running down the side, so I made the front yard in landscape orientation and the back in portrait. I tried to use different colors and tree textures to show the trees since some overshadow others.
With the map finished, my next step has been assembly of a plant field guide to my yard. It only has those few plants that grow on my property, but it helps me to connect to my environment one level at a time. As I expand outward, I will begin to add entries for plants in my region of town, then to the physiographic province of my state.
When one composes a work of lore such as a local guide to plants, it is vitally important to have knowledge of the presence and an understanding of the impact of invasive species. Certainly, these species are part of nature. Certainly, they have some right to grow as they do and they can be very useful. But just as human folly allowed these species to take root in areas that permit them to function as super-beings over their comrade plants, it is up to personal human opinion whether or not one wishes to allow the continued growth of these plants.
In these situations, I ask myself these questions:
Is it abundant elsewhere?
Does it have any useful properties that would make me want it around (medicinal, incense, soil stabilization)?
Are there native plants that prefer this particular habitat (slope face, moisture level, drainage, sun/shade levels)?
My purely pagan position is this: if the plant is listed as an invasive by your local extension service, botanical society, or green smarty-pants, you can be sure that it is far from being endangered. Likely, it exists throughout your region in population densities that are detrimental to otherwise native plants. When I find a plant I don't know, I look it up and get to know it. If it has no medicinal or aromatic properties that would bribe me to nurture it or leave it alone, then I pull it up, chop it down, or spray it with killer. Losing it from my property will not endanger the plant community because my city is infested with it! What I've found is that an enormous number of other herbs begin to sprout from the seed bank in the soil. Sometimes more of the invasive plants return, attesting to their invasive nature, but more often I find new colors that have not seen sunlight for quite a long time.
Of course, I started with a key or guide to the trees in my area. After moving here, I never got around to buying a local plant guide. But I'm lucky to live near all the overachievers who attend Duke University, so I was able to find some great keys through their online projects. Some of the trees were very difficult due to varietals and hybrids.
Once I knew what was growing, I started to draw it out. As I was drawing, I tried to imagine that I would have to hand this guide to someone who didn't live here who had to identify all of the trees. Even still, I'm sure the map has its confusing areas. Though I used graph paper, my drawings are not to scale. My property is wedge-shaped with a stream running down the side, so I made the front yard in landscape orientation and the back in portrait. I tried to use different colors and tree textures to show the trees since some overshadow others.
With the map finished, my next step has been assembly of a plant field guide to my yard. It only has those few plants that grow on my property, but it helps me to connect to my environment one level at a time. As I expand outward, I will begin to add entries for plants in my region of town, then to the physiographic province of my state.
When one composes a work of lore such as a local guide to plants, it is vitally important to have knowledge of the presence and an understanding of the impact of invasive species. Certainly, these species are part of nature. Certainly, they have some right to grow as they do and they can be very useful. But just as human folly allowed these species to take root in areas that permit them to function as super-beings over their comrade plants, it is up to personal human opinion whether or not one wishes to allow the continued growth of these plants.
In these situations, I ask myself these questions:
Is it abundant elsewhere?
Does it have any useful properties that would make me want it around (medicinal, incense, soil stabilization)?
Are there native plants that prefer this particular habitat (slope face, moisture level, drainage, sun/shade levels)?
My purely pagan position is this: if the plant is listed as an invasive by your local extension service, botanical society, or green smarty-pants, you can be sure that it is far from being endangered. Likely, it exists throughout your region in population densities that are detrimental to otherwise native plants. When I find a plant I don't know, I look it up and get to know it. If it has no medicinal or aromatic properties that would bribe me to nurture it or leave it alone, then I pull it up, chop it down, or spray it with killer. Losing it from my property will not endanger the plant community because my city is infested with it! What I've found is that an enormous number of other herbs begin to sprout from the seed bank in the soil. Sometimes more of the invasive plants return, attesting to their invasive nature, but more often I find new colors that have not seen sunlight for quite a long time.
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