Daily Quiz for April 1, 2020

[Mike Nolan]

Which of these statements are true?

[See the full post at: Daily Quiz for April 1, 2020]

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[BakerAunt]

I answered correctly. The nutrition information I've been reading over the past few years has been helpful in more ways than one.

[Joan Simpson]

Dang it.

[BakerAunt]

I need to ask: Is egg shell considered edible?

[skeptic7]

An egg shell isn't poisonous but I can't consider it edible. I know chickens are often fed egg shells as a calcium source, but does this do people any good?

[Mike Nolan]

Powdered egg shell is a good source of calcium. My grandmother always put a little eggshell in the coffee pot, it is supposed to make coffee less bitter. (I don't drink coffee, so I wouldn't know if it works.) Powdered egg shell also makes a good scrubbing compound mixed with baking soda.

[chocomouse]

I save egg shells in the spring/summer, dry them, then pulverize in the food processor. I sprinkle it around the tomato and peppers plants when they begin to have buds. It helps them to set fruit and prevents blossom end rot. But I've never directly eaten the shells.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I did not know about mushrooms!

Isn't cowboy coffee boiled coffee with egg shells to 1) make it less bitter (who would argue with a mom about that!) and 2) they float on top and keep more of the grinds in the pot when the coffee is poured.

At least that's what was in the books I read as a boy.

[BakerAunt]

You (and your Mom) are correct, Aaron. One of my girl scout leaders made her coffee this way. Her husband, who was along for support on the weekend camping trip, looked at it and said, "Is that a pot of grease!"

I'm not positive, but I think that Swedish coffee may be made that way as well. I don't plan to try it. I'm quite happy with my French Press.

The mushrooms have Vitamin D because many are grown under ultraviolet light. I'm not sure about the ones in the woods, not that I know enough to harvest any from there.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

I did some serious mushroom hunting as a teenager, helped by my grandmother, who was well versed in foraging. Also, NW Illinois and portions of eastern Iowa are an odd geographical area, it was skipped by the last two glaciers so there are a lot of hills and there are things that commonly grow there that are otherwise rare in North America. The botany students from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb would come out on field trips to study those plants.

There are a few types of safe mushrooms that are pretty easy to recognize, morels and inky caps are two of them. Inky caps and shaggy manes (both in the Coprinus genus) are tasty, but about 10% of the population gets a reaction to them, which can become fatal if combined with alcohol. If you've ever seen a fairy ring, it is safe, too. There's a fairy ring in Michigan that is something like a half mile in diameter, it may be one of the oldest living things in North America, they grow outward at a rate of about an inch a year, as I recall.

We get mushrooms in the back yard in the fall, they're probably Amanita phalloides, otherwise know as the Death Cap. They get quite large, sometimes 8 inches tall.

[BakerAunt]

A lot of foraging for morels goes on in our area and in the state parks when they are in season.

There are some wild green onions that come up in the woods at this time of year as well. They have to be eaten close to when they are harvested, as the flavor fades rapidly.

[Mike Nolan]

Those wild onions may be ramps. They have a flavor that some have called a cross between onions, leeks and garlic.

Ramps like wet soil and were quite prevalent in the Chicago area before it was urbanized. People still tramp through the Forest Preserves in the spring in search for them.

See Foraging for Ramps

It is thought that ramps were the plant native Americans called chicagoua, which is where the name of the city Chicago came from.

[BakerAunt]

My husband and I looked at the picture. What we have are not ramps. We think they are a kind of garlic, although it has a taste reminiscent of green onion.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

If it isn't ramps, it could be ramsoms, sometimes called wild garlic or broad leaf garlic. We used to pick this with my grandmother, she'd cook it with stinging nettles and what she called 'mock spinach', which I think was lambs quarters.

IMHO they're a lot milder than garlic cloves, but I'm not sure if my wife would react to them or not, so I'm not eager to find out.

[BakerAunt]

No, it's not ramsoms. My husband is trying to remember the name our botanist friend told him. They look almost like chives.

On another note, the morel mushrooms have been under stress due to the spread of an invasive plant called garlic mustard, which sterilizes the soil so that mushrooms cannot grow. It's a major problem, and it's one of the invasive plants that my husband fights in his woodlands. Others are multiflora rose, honeysuckle, and the Asian bittersweet.

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