Tuesday – Time Travel

Imagine a time when food was scarce. We could learn from our ancestors.

If you were a hungry peasant trudging through the marshes of northwest France in 1650, you might look at cattails as dinner.  The shaggy green spears of cattails could be dinner, dessert, mattress stuffing, and roofing shingles—all in one plant.

Cattails (Typha latifolia), those brown torches, that are found in ponds everywhere, were once prized. To peasants, they were not weeds, but survival.

• Food: In spring, the tender young shoots were peeled and eaten raw, like cucumber.
• In summer, the green flower spikes were roasted and chewed like corn on the cob.
• Autumn offered starchy rhizomes, which—pounded into a flour—could stretch the rye bread that never quite stretched far enough.

Medicinal:
Cattail fluff, that downy silk from the seed heads, doubled as wound dressing. 

Household:
That same fluff insulated shoes, padded bedding, and even stuffed pillows.

Other uses:
Stalks became torches; leaves were plaited into baskets, mats, and chair seats; and if you had the patience, they made a serviceable thatch for the roof.

For peasants, cattails were proof that Providence provided—if you weren’t too proud to wade into the muck. They were edible, wearable, flammable, stuffable, and indispensable.

Think about it the next time you pass a cattail near a pond. In 1650, it might have been the difference between a peasant going to bed hungry or not. For more historical tidbits join me at:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1185865059974956