Ramps, rapes and raddichio. What odd sounding or unusual vegetables have you cooked or eaten?

Star fruit. lychee nuts. Sugar cane.

Wow! You surprised me. I have eaten sugar cane, but not lychee nuts or star fruit. Maybe I’ll have to put those on my list of things to try.

@Kardamom Star fruit is poisonous to children. My dad gave me some when I was 4 and I got very ill.

I love kohlrabi but nobody I know has heard of it. But I can always find it at the grocery store in the summer. The cashiers are often mystified by it. It’s weird.

Lychee nuts are like a lavender-flavored grape with an eggshell outside and a big pit inside.

The other day I was walking out of the grocery store alongside a guy who had a five foot length of sugar cane. I’ve never seen it before. I have to go back and find it.

Rape is a vegetable?

@jaytkay Kohlrabi always reminds me of aliens from another planet, as if those things are tentacles. Maybe they’re the Jellyfish from another time and dimension LOL.

I, too, have tried star fruit, lychee nuts and sugar cane. We used to eat kohlrabi when I was a kid. I’ve cooked and creamed radishes (they come out lavender and taste somewhat similar to cooked cabbage.) I’ve had parsnips, which seem fairly uncommon. I’ve cooked eel a couple different ways, but eaten little of it (bleh, spit).

When I was a kid my mom would buy nearly anything to eat that was unknown. This was in the 70’s when the first supermarkets were opening and we’d come home with tinned rattlesnake, fresh coconuts, smoked herring and other things that was foreign to the Midwest. I remember taking the coconut out and banging it on the sidewalk. I was afraid of breaking it, because I knew (from Gilligan, of course) that the inside was filled with creamy delicious coconut milk. I finally found a soft spot, drilled a hole, and got the milk out. Milk my asp! Thin watery crap with brown shell bits floating in it. Finally I broke it open, knowing we had sweet delicious coconut meat for a treat. Yuck! How I learned that coconut is sweetened. I tried coconut milk again about a month ago, and it hasn’t improved. Kiwi’s were a hit, though, and we begged for smoked herring every time we went to Randall’s grocery.

@ibstubro Only recently I learned that coconut milk and coconut water are two different things. Milk is squeezed from the meat. Water is the liquid inside the coconut.

AH! I didn’t know that, @jaytkay. Both my childhood experience and my recent one were with water. I’ve never cooked with coconut milk, so never had cause to differentiate. Gilligan, once again, has led me astray.

I’ve had duryan (the stinky yet delicious fruit), rambutan, lychees, all when I visited Indonesia a long time ago.

And kohlrabi is delicious.

One thing I want to try, because a friend posted a picture of it and said it’s delicious, is borage.

There’s a veggie called a rape?

Musubi is like sushi, with meat and a block of rice wrapped with seaweed.

The meat is Spam.

Musubi

Crap. I just noticed the question was ‘vegetables’.

I fried and ate dandelion blossoms, once. I boiled and ate dandelion greens, once.

@Dutchchess cuteness, @Blackberry

Rape is what canola oil is made from. They came up with canola because well, “I’d like to purchase 3 bottles of rape oil” just doesn’t sound quite right….

@Kardamom Fried squash blossoms are delicious. I always pick a ton off my plants.

I’m also growing some bok choy in my garden right now. I love growing plants like this because you can harvest every week or so all summer long.

I can’t really think of many other odd veggies I’ve eaten. TONS of different fruit, but this question isn’t about fruit….

Lots, since I forage for wild foods. Off the top of my head: sumac, burdock, goldthread, sarsaparilla, wild parsnip (different plant than domesticated paranip), Indian cucumber, narrow-leaved goldenrod, jewelweed, balsam fir (the sap is edible), sheep sorrel and wood sorrel, wapato, cattails, wild rice, fiddlehead ferns, ground cherry, lamb’s quarters, red clover, dandelion, rose hips, thistle, milkweed, Queen Anne’s Lace, morel mushrooms. The forest is an endless buffet if you learn what to look for.

This isn’t a vegetable, but you lychee nut fans should try longan fruit. It’s similar but different, and just as delicious.

@wildpotato I think you just won the contest for most unusual, and most plentiful amounts of different veggies consumed.

@ibstubro Here is the Difference between coconut milk and coconut water. Don’t give up on either one of them. Coconut water, when drank from a fresh young coconut is one of the most refreshing things on earth, the yummy, slightly sweet meat is fantastic too. I’ve had it served Like This in Asian restaurants all over Southern California. Coconut milk on the other hand is delicious in a lot of Thai recipes. This is one of my favorite soups of all time Tom Kha Gai

All about the vegetable called Rape

And let’s not forget about Rocket

Want to learn an easy one? Sumac is everywhere. I can almost guarantee that all of you in North America reading this have seen these guys, growing in large stands along roadsides. You can pick those berry clusters and soak them (around 8 good sized clusters) in a pitcher of cold water to make Indian lemonade. It’s my favorite summertime drink. I like it unsweetened, but use sugar to your preference.

@Kardamom That link about rape is actually about broccoli rabe, Brassica rapa, the rape plant however is Brassica napus

Thanks @El_Cadejo . When I was looking it up, there seemed to be some confusion between the different plants.

@wildpotato I’ve been eating Za’atar lately, a Middle Eastern spice blend containing sumac. I love the citrusy-woodsy taste.

@all Just make sure that if you are foraging for sumac, that you know the difference between Poisonous Sumac and Edible Sumac. They’re related species, but they’re not the same thing.

I grew up believing that sumac was poisonous, @wildpotato. I’m pretty sure I know where some is growing right now. It can be harvested from July until fall for lemonade? Tell us more about this drink. Could it be fermented into wine?

@ibstubro Fermented sumac lemonade? Sir, are you trying to seduce us ladies?

I’ve had jicama, bittermelon, durian, jackfruit, rambutan, lychee, you name it, I’ve probably tried it. I don’t remember what the jicama tasted like, but the others I remember vividly. Basically, the first three after jicama take a lot of getting used to. Rambutan and lychee are pretty easy to get behind.

lol, @Kardamom. I have a friend that’s all about making wine, and I’m forever hunting her ingredients that are free, or the same as. She missed the Elderberry blossom season.

@Kardamom I love za’atar! My last roomie made some fantastic Kurdish dishes with it.

@ibstubro Yes, you can harvest from now until fall – end of August around here in MA, but you’re further south (I think) so that might extend the season a bit. Dark-colored clusters are usually the ripest, though sometimes the light pink ones will be unexpectedly ready. Best time to harvest is after several days of sunshine – rain tends to wash out the flavor a bit, so don’t harvest just after a shower. Also, gently part each berry cluster to check it is free of bugs. One final tip for Indian lemonade – after soaking in cold water in a pitcher, strain the liquid through a cheesecloth into another pitcher to catch the berries and their fuzz, which comes off in the soaking water.

Sumac with red berries is never poisonous – though the plant is a relative of the cashew and the mango, so people with allergies to those foods should take care. Otherwise, as long as it’s red it’s good to go. Poison sumac has white, smooth berries that droop down like grapes, and it grows in swamps. Edible sumac (usually staghorn or smooth) has red, hairy berries that grow upright, and it grows in well-drained soil on dry sites.

You can indeed make wine from sumac – reportedly a very tasty wine, at that. I have not done this, but will let you know if I do (or if you try it, let me know your results, please!). Googling “sumac wine” gives several hits; seems pretty straightforward. I do know that to make concentrate, soak four sets of eight drupes (the proper name for the berry clusters) in the same pitcher of cold water, for half an hour for each set. This can be frozen and reconstituted for the winter, or be made into a nice tart jelly.

Sumac berries vary in taste quite a bit from year to year, even on the same plant – so if you don’t like it the first time you try it, give it a shot again next year.

But, what constitutes “unexpectedly ready”, @wildpotato? How do I know they are “ready”? Also, it seems silly to put the clusters in a pitcher of water and then try to crush them. Why not crush them in a small amount of water, then fill the pitcher? I’m going hunting for berries later today.

@ibstubro Lick the drupe, or break off an individual berry or two and pop them in your mouth and suck on them. If it tastes tart it’s ready. If it tastes “green” it’s not ready. Start with the darkest clusters you see.

Your idea with a small amount of water for the breaking-up part would also be fine. The idea is just to loosen the drupes up a bit. It’s easy to do in a pitcher because they float, but there’s no wrong way to do it – the only important part is to use cold water, not hot.

@wildpotato Can you bring some of that to our next potluck?

Okay.
I found some sumac, but I think it was a different variety all together, so I continued my hunt. About 2 miles from my home I found a nice stand of traditional sumac, harvested 7–8 clusters, and put them in a gallon glass jar. I tried to soften them up some with a large wooden spoon. I then added cold water. I was thinking it was only one hour to stand, but since it’s ‘at least 4’ it will have to be overnight. Should I leave it out on the counter, or put it in the fridge?

Here’s a tip: drop each cluster a few times onto a hard surface before you start the process. That removed at least one small green spider and a wood tick from the mix. I dropped mine about 4–5” onto the sidewalk 2–3 times each, rotating in between.

They are probably too green.

I’ll tell you that the Indian Lemonade was a hit. I sampled it on 4–5 people so far, and they all liked it better than me, and I thought it was pretty tasty. Sumac wine is in the works.

I wish we had a botanist on here. I found a new crop of sumac today. The berries were so dark, I had to get out of the car and touch them to see if they were this year’s or not. They were. Growing in a fairly moist area, whereas the others were fairly dry. The new crop, however, had some white, spun looking things on some of the berries. I touched one or 2 and they almost seemed more like foam than web. Daring, I touched my fingertip to my tongue and wowza! Sour! I’m wondering if these are perhaps unber-berries, making so much ‘lemon’ that it is visible?? Rain will likely ruin_that_. I don’t relish the idea of Indian Spider Lemonade, however.

BTW. Mine much resembled ‘Indian Iced Tea with Lemon’. I dispensed with the cheesecloth and just used a handled fine mesh strainer over the glass or jar.

EVERYONE (and I mean to a person) around here believes sumac is poison. Myself included, of course, pre-lemonade.

@Kardamom You got it!

@ibstubro I’m glad you like it! From your description of the white stuff it sounds to me like bug residue, either spider webbing or spittlebug foam. But it says on here that the smooth sumac, which is the common variety in your area, sometimes has waxy white stuff on the berries and that this is desirable and full of flavor – which fits in with your extrusion theory. So maybe that’s what it is. My local varitey is staghorn sumac, which does not have the waxy secretion, so I would not be able to tell you for sure on this. But what I can tell you is, I personally don’t worry about bugs in the drupes much. As I mentioned above somewhere I part the berries while picking to look at the centers to check for grubs, but unless there’s a bunch in there I just grab it and use it and don’t worry about steeping a few spiders with the lemonade. But of course this is a comfort level thing. And yeah, when we run out of cheesecloth (because we always forget to rinse out the piece we used last time, dangit!), we just use a mesh strainer, too.

Here is a sumac jelly recipe I’m going to try; I’ll let you know how it goes.

@wildpotato Sumac jelly! That sounds really good!

Honestly, I think I have both varieties here, @wildpotato and the batch I made was from staghorn, the bushes I saw, was smooth. The first batch was from individual plants mostly having one cluster on a hillside. The ones I saw later were more like bushes with multiple berry clusters and growing in a moist (ditch) environment.

In any case, I’ll not be able to experiment with any of them for the next several days. I’d like to try the new ones…I suppose if there were bugs in there, they would rise to the surface.