
Stalking the Wild Groundnut - Alex3917
https://orionmagazine.org/article/stalking-the-wild-groundnut/
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1024core
For North Americans: "groundnut" is what the British call "peanut".

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laurencerowe
Peanuts are called peanuts in Britain.

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flavor8
Peanuts are called peanuts in the US too.

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phyzome
I'm growing one of these this year! A friend gave me a 2 inch wide tuber and
it sent up an 8 foot vine _real fast_ this spring. Attractive foliage. I'm
hoping to grow enough tubers to be able to eat some in a few years...

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flavor8
I'm also growing them, on year 2 now. Weeds tend to get ahead of them in early
spring, but they're vigorous once they get off the ground. I'm also growing
edible air potato one bed over.

Anybody who's interested in this stuff should check out the books Paradise Lot
and Perennial Vegetables, both by Eric Toensmeier.

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ars
[http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=APAM](http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=APAM)
explains why they are not more popular:

"Because of their vining nature, groundnut would be hard to grow on a field
scale, and their annual yield appears to be quite low in comparison to other
crops. Groundnut is difficult to cultivate mechanically, because each tuber
can sprout and grow in the spring, filling in spaces between rows."

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joveian
Another interesting tuber I just found out about recently (although more
popular in some parts of the world) is "Tiger Nuts":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus)

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gameofdrones
Neat. Speaking of stubborn, usually desirable plants: mint. Plant it
separately in a container.

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wtbob
What a fascinating article! I wonder if the reaction to it is simply a latex
reaction?

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Alex3917
Yeah, Sam Thayer's comments about racism with respect to eating native plants
are what made me want to post this. I hadn't heard that before.

In terms of the allergy, I agree that it's most likely either the latex or
something else that's present when they're not fully cooked. I'd also be
curious as to whether either the person digging them up or the person cooking
them is more likely to have an allergic reaction than the people merely eating
them.

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wtbob
> Yeah, Sam Thayer's comments about racism with respect to eating native
> plants are what made me want to post this. I hadn't heard that before.

They were interesting, but I wasn't convinced. I think it's not so much racism
as those plants not fitting into traditional European methods of large-scale
food production (unlike e.g. potatoes, corn, peppers, tomatoes, squash &c.).
If you look at the traditional cuisine of e.g. the Tidewater region (up until
the 1950s), you find an amazing amount of aboriginal foods in the diet.

I think that if they could have included something in their methods of
cultivation, they would have.

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hackaflocka
FWIW, lotus stems (mentioned in the article as an extinct food in the
Americas) are widely eaten in India. They're delicious.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
I think that's a different lotus; Nelumbo nucifera
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_nucifera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_nucifera))
for India and Nelumbo lutea
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_lutea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelumbo_lutea))
for America.

