Re: Slightly off topic - Mere vegetables


> Carol Joynson wrote:
> >
> > Thomas Etty Esq. offers a vegetable called Bistort (Polygonum bistorta)
> for
> > sale and mentions that it is one of the basic ingredients of Easter Ledger
> > Pudding.
> > An Easter Garden writes: "In some parts of the country it is known as
> > Easterman Giants, Easter Ledger and Passion Dock. Far from being just a
> > weed, the Common Bistort can be eaten - and it still is in northern areas
> of
> > England, where it's made into a dish called Dock Pudding. The
> long-stalked,
> > heart-shaped leaves are mixed with chopped nettle leaves, onions, oatmeal,
> > salt and pepper and then fried. Other leaves might include cabbage leaves,
> > dandelion leaves... almost anything green! Delicious! "
> >
> > Can anyone tell me whether this is the Easter Ledger Pudding to which
> Thomas
> > Etty refers?
> >
>  Carol
> 
> Richard Mabey's "Flora Britannica", along with recipes, offers the following names for Persicaria bistorta, Dock, Easter Ledges, Easterman Giants, Easter may giants, Pudding dock, pink pokers inter al, stating that only Southerners use the name "bistort" which is odd because a Northerner was asking  me whether she could eat docks this morning, presumably confusing them with bistort.  Obviously the answer is No because all docks taste revolting and although Bistort grows like a weed all over the nursery, it is too dock-like to tempt me to try and eat it. Rather like Sorrel in appearance  too, which really is delicious provided you use the comparatively uncommon cultivated variety from Northern France. As for nettle pudding which someone else mentioned, my first job from which I was fired within 48 hours was in a foxhound kennels where we had to make "Nettle pudding" out of nettles and meal in vast vats for the hounds. Revolting stuff, revolting job, the nettles stung like h!
ell until they were cooked
I'll stick to a carnivorous diet

Anthony
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