By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
The Malakoff Scarecrow Extravaganza is underway, and it is looking good. I don’t have room to start listing all the great ones here because I’ve got to tell you about something else. But let me tell you, they are everywhere, and a lot of folks haven’t even got theirs out yet. If your isn’t out, I hope you are working on it. As I write this, Cedar Lake Nursing Home hasn’t got theirs out yet, but I’ve seen what they are working on, and they are going to be really good. Around next weekend will be the time to invite your friends from out of town to come take a tour.
Now to my big news: You may think I’m being sacrilegious, but I am sort of serious—I halfway think God is planting things in my garden because he sees I am doing such a pitiful job growing things by myself. If you have not had anything better to do than follow my column, you may remember I had this miraculous crop of lambsquarters appear in my garden early this year. If you don’t remember, I’ll remind you that lambsquarters is one of the most nutritious greens there is, and it tastes great. It surrounded my little raised beds where I was trying to grow stuff, and was much prettier and healthier than anything I had planted. And then the grasshoppers came and ate up everything except my tomatoes, okra, and the lambsquarters. Later ants messed up my okra, but they weren’t interested in the lambsquarters either. It was wonderful! I harangued all of you to go find some lambsquarters of your own, or even come get some of mine, but I never convinced anybody except Donna Rinn and my daughter Liz. Both of them totally took advantage of it, and even transplanted some at their houses. Liz is getting ready to save seeds from her transplants. Time passed and the lambsquarters got old and tough and everything dried up except the okra, which is giving me one or two okra pods now and then. Then it rained and cooled off a bit. So I went out to clean up a spot to plant some fall greens, and was astounded to find a whole corner of the garden filled with something strange and green and happy looking. It is Purslane, a cousin to portulaca, or moss rose.
Now I’d heard that purslane was another nutritious, tasty native green, but I had never seen enough of it in one place to consider trying it out. But here it is, bushels of it, just shouting “Come do something with me!” So I headed to Google and found out purslane is a lot more recognized as cool than lambsquarter. Plus super nutritious. Seriously. If you don’t believe me, just Google it. You’ll be amazed at all the articles and recipes. You’ll discover Martha Washington had a recipe for pickling it, and that some very high-class restaurants are serving it. On Pinterest there are dozens of pictures dishes featuring it.
So far, I have just sautéed some in coconut oil with some onion and garlic. It was great. It is sort of lemony, has a little of the consistency of boiled okra, and is really pretty, with its red stems and little green leaves. In the morning it is going to be the green in my green smoothie.
Purslane contains more omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant. It also contains vitamins A, C, E and B and carotenoids (whatever they are,) as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, and iron. But listen to this: it offers you two different tastes, depending on the time of day you pick it:
“When stressed by low availability of water, purslane, which has evolved in hot and dry environments, does something interesting: At night its leaves trap carbon dioxide, which is converted into malic acid (the souring principle of apples), and, in the day, the malic acid is converted into glucose. When harvested in the early morning, the leaves have 10 times the malic acid content as when harvested in the late afternoon, and thus have a significantly more tangy taste.”
I hope you will try purslane. It’s good for you and it’s free. But I know you won’t listen to me. You never do.