Skunk cabbages
Look! Gabriola’s skunk cabbages have emerged from swampy ground, and are starting to grow: a perfect west coast sign of spring. You know that bend in North Road as you go from the village and approach Horseshoe? Just before the road straightens out, look to the right and you’ll see skunk cabbages next to the road. They grow in swamps and wet areas.
They’re just tiny things now, but will look like this when they bloom. Impressive, no?
The skunk cabbage page at wildmanstevebrill.com has lots more information about the plant, including a good reason to avoid eating skunk cabbage:
Marginally edible at best, skunk cabbage contains calcium oxalate crystals, which cause the must unpleasant burning sensation of the mouth and tongue. Boiling doesn’t dispel this quality. I once dried young skunk cabbage leaves in a food dehydrator for a week, following instructions from Lee Peterson’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants. Then I simmered them with lots of other vegetables, tomatoes, spices, and beans, making chili. I finally dispelled the calcium oxalate crystals from the skunk cabbage — unfortunately, they went into my mouth!
After cursing out Peterson for an hour before the burning and stinging of my tongue and mouth, caused by one bite (which I quickly spat out), subsided, I flushed the entire recipe down the toilet, and the plumbing’s never been the same since! [continue]
Filed in Gabriola Island,native plants,photos 2 Comments so far
2 Responses to “Skunk cabbages”
rick on 22 Feb 2009 at 11:09 am #
FYI
The hill you head down on North Road is “McClay Hill” named after the farm that took up that whole area years ago. It is often mis-named ‘horseshoe hill’ because of its proximity to the road of the same name. There is good soil in that area, so the old McClays knew what they were doing. It was eventually chopped up into smaller parcels, but there are still signs of the old farm and its orchard.
Gabriolan on 22 Feb 2009 at 9:42 pm #
Thank you, Rick! You know all sorts of things I don’t know about Gabriola, and I’m grateful to you for sharing some of them here.