I promised I would post this today. I honestly just started making this a couple of years ago, because my daughter added a new appetizer to Thanksgiving Day and I really try to make sure that’s the one day of year I am making everything from scratch.
As you might know, I don’t write about indigenous North Americans’ use of plants on this blog. That is not my history to tell. When I do write about the history of a new world plant, I first look at what was going on in the old world with alternate species and reason out how the new plant worked its way into that system. Because that’s the system I know.
Most frequently what I have seen is that colonists harvested plants that looked like produce that was used back home and used “old world” receipts to cook with them and use them in medicine. Then explorers and sailors wrote home about the new plant, it became trendy in Europe, and all of a sudden it was everywhere. Sound familiar?
I decided that we’d had enough cool evenings that it was time to dig up some astragalus root this week. Well it was actually my husband who dug it up. He’s been promoted to full apprentice status around here. I set aside a good size chunk to shred and dry and roast with honey and then chopped up the rest to make astragalus broth for pressure canning. Both recipes are in the article below. Continue reading
