Yummers: Kudzu or Chile or Nutria?

Feeding our families and feeding ourselves... can you do it locally? There is a new magazine gearing up regional editions to help promote local eating.  When in Rome, you know...  but even the Romans might have shunned Kudzu or Nutria.  Maybe when I lived in the South I might have ventured out and cooked up kudzu had I had some recipes.  I've heard it is good against alcoholism but eating it? Hmmm.  Create a market and they will come?  Didn't work for nutria (unless nutria meat is being exported to places where they eat shark fins or dogs or horses or such things we won't nibble here?).

Chefs in New Orleans tried to promote recipes to use Nutria, those awful little critters that have taken over the bayous and have no natural enemies.  The South American native rat-like animals escaped from cages on the  salt dome island near Lafayette, Louisiana where Tabasco is made during a hurricane quite awhile back and, like kudzu, they have become terrifically invasive.

Well, New Mexico chiles are a local food you can eat up, eat up and eat up.  In fact, they are addictive. Northern New Mexico cuisine features both red and green chile... in restaurants you are asked if you want "red, green or Christmas" with the latter option giving you both.  Eating local... a hot idea.

Comments

[No Diet Coke for Mommy]

Yummy rats. Maybe with enough chiles it would taste good lol

[carron hardin]

For non-New Mexicans...we new New Mexicans have learned to ask "which is the hottest?", regarding "red, green, or Christmas?" Certain times of the year it is the green, other times the red. I think it has to do with when the chiles are havested. Some restaurants, like El Pinto in Albuquerque, ask "red or green...hot or mild?" But....its all good !!

[Kathy]

Are nutria nutritious? They sound dreadful.

Even if I could eat locally-grown foods, they'd have to be nourished by water imported to Southern California. Would that count still?

[Hattie]

We get a lot of fresh food locally, because we live on the Big Island of Hawaii, which is mostly rural. We have not one but several farmers' markets, most notably the Hilo Wednesday and Saturday Market. In addition, we grow avocados, citrus, bananas, breakfruit, and other things in my yard. On occasion, neighbors give us fish and other items. We could also drink Kona coffee and would, if it were not so expensive. I pay a lot at the health food store for organic chicken from the Mainland and local grass-fed beef.
Not bad, but of course cheese, most meats, and staples such as rice, flour and potatoes are imports.