I miss the year-round flora and fauna from my SoCal childhood. Even mundane groundcovers like ice plant seem exotic and beautiful to me now.
I took these photos on our December trip to San Francisco. December! I've lived in a snowy climate for so long now, I've pretty much forgotten what it feels like to walk outside barefoot on Christmas day....or to think that it's "freezing" outside at 65 degrees...not to mention how much easier it is to eat locally and seasonally in warmer climes. In the mountain valley where I live, the growing season is only 3 months!
As a kid, we used to call this stuff sour grass. It grew in the alley behind my house and on the borders of the playground at school. We'd chew on the stem to taste the lemony flavor and then spit out the pulp. After snapping this photo, I tried it again for old time's sake. Not bad. Did you chew on this stuff as a kid, too?
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We still have a few spots left in our Intro to Letterpress / Valentine class this Saturday, if anyone is interested.
My new blog obsession: http://folkobject.tumblr.com/ (via Design*Sponge)
6 comments:
You should also visit this site: http://anambitiousprojectcollapsing.blogspot.com/
found via folkobject.
Hope you are well- the grass is still green here in Vancouver and my kids like to chew on the ends of 'Elephant Grass'- not sure if it's the same kind:)
Thanks for the link. Love it!
Hmmm...does Elephant grass taste sour and have yellow flowers?
Haha I don't think we ever chewed on this stuff as a kid! What we DID eat though, was if you pop the flower off of clovers (its purply) you can eat the white part. We were told once that this was edible so we made it a daily treat (not sure why, it doesn't taste all that great!)
now my new blog obsession. so my inspiration!
I don't guess it was the same thing, because it didn't flower, but I remember eating some sort of sour grass as a kid, too. What a great memory you made me think of :)
on the border of the walk around the house was a line of sour grass, which we children would pick and scrape the juice from the stem and spit out the pulp--never ate the flowers or the leaves. Only grew about 6 to 10 inches high and was perennial. It was there when we moved there in 1938. The home was built around 1910 or so. I've not run into it since--and are happy to have found someone has a picture of it--perhaps. Thankx Memories of childhood are poignant.
How do I find this plant in Illinois?
Marie
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