This is the third in a series of essays on foods used by the pioneers in Florida's panhandle. We are discussing plants, this time. As I have said before, unless otherwise noted the plants will be those actually used in the 1800s, while the recipes will not necessarily be. Libraries and the internet are good places to look for authenticity.

Pioneers raised mostly corn, potatoes, greens, beans and peas, but gathered other things from nature's storehouse. Blackberries, blueberries or more properly - huckleberries, sparkleberries and other small fruits were used. Pears, peaches, apples, grapes and citrus were either planted or found in the woods along with items neither you nor I may be familiar with. Prickly pear, green briar, mulberry, fiddleheads and heart of palm are some of the more exotic things they had. Now, we have to pay a fancy price for them in the grocery stores. Green briar or Smilax shoots (above) are tasty eaten raw or cooked. The tender ends are broken off and used like asparagus. They are prickly vine-like plants with either heart-shaped or lance-shaped leaves. Wild mustard and other similar greens were cooked and a plant called peppergrass was used to perk up foods. As a child I loved the bite of this green seed. I don't know if they used violets, but they should have! Cattail, nut grass, pokeweed, dock, purslane, dandelion, acorns and many more wild plants were eaten with relish (or not!).

I have often wondered how our ancestors learned to eat the strange items they came across. I'm sure in some cases the natives told them about foods they did not have in their European or northern homes. But, who taught them? Certain wild foods are extremely dangerous if not properly prepared. African foods were brought over on slave ships, as were those from around the Caribbean. The people familiar with these imported foods taught their neighbors how to use them. Explorers introduced foods when they came and the pioneers brought some of their favorite ones along with them.

Since many of the settlers in the panhandle were from the south, numerous Northwest Florida food items would be familiar. Those who never lived near the sea would find more unusual items.

Below are: Fiddleheads of ferns; Mulberry; Prickley Pear; Persimmon; PawPaw; Peppergrass; Wild Mustard.

Some fiddleheads have been linked to cancer, recently, so an occasional dish of them probably is all right, but I would not suggest using them often until we know more. The ferns indicted are Bracken, Pteridium auquilinum and Royal, Osmunda regalis. Fiddleheads are the tightly coiled buds of fern leaves and are used mostly as we would use asparagus or artichokes — served with buter and lemon, Hollandaise sauce, or other light sauces.

People who have Mulberry bushes in their yards may not be as happy with them as the average pioneer would have been. Today few people know them other than as "those horrible stains!" The fruit does make an awful stain and that's why it has been used as a dye. I have never tried it, but I understand you can even color eggs with them. Jams and pies are made from them. Dried, they made a wonderful treat. To dry them, one strings them on thread and hangs them in warm shade, taking them in at night or drying them indoors in rainy weather.

4 cups of mulberries, stemmed, washed, and well drained
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup sugar
3 TBS quick cooking Tapioca
grated nutmeg
Preheat oven to 450, line a pie pan with a pastry crust. Place berries in pan, sprinkle with other ingredients in the above order, cover with second crust, sealing edges and slitting center to vent steam. Bake 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325, bake 25 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. Cool on rack before serving. Serves 6.

Prickly Pear cactus was used as a vegetable or to thicken soups. The thorny skins could be scorched and then peeled. If you want to try this at home, carefully cut some pads (best done with a pair of tongs and a long knife), then put them on a baking sheet in a 350 oven for about 40 minutes. Split the skins and peel. Fry battered in oil: for 16 pads about 4-5 inches long, mix 1 well beaten egg into 1/2 cup of milk and dip the pads in. Mix 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal, 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt, then roll the dampened pads in it and fry 4-5 minutes in about 1/4 inch of oil over medium heat.

The fruit may be purchased today with the thorns already removed. It is excellent eaten raw, made into a beautiful syrup, candied, stewed, or in other ways. It has a flavor you will probably never forget. The fruits were gathered in much of the year when they are soft and slightly shriveled.

Persimmons were probably some of the most versatile of the available fruits. It could be used in jam, "butter," sweet bread, pudding. They must be used only after a hard frost, otherwise they are bitter. You can "fool" them by putting them into the freezer to sweeten them as you do greens. It's the cold that causes sugars to form in the plant cells. Prickly Pear fruit is so good Gophers fight over them, and we have all heard the story of the fox and the grapes. It's a wonder some of the wild foods ever make it to the table with so many critters vieing for them.

1 1/2 cups persimmon pulp; 1 1/2 cups sugar; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1 1/2 cups buttermilk; 1 1/4 cups flour. Strain persimmon through a colander. Stir in all ingredients and put in a greased pan. Bake one hour on low heat.

Dandelions or other wild greens were gathered very early in the spring. Sometimes they were parboiled, then sautéed with salt and pepper. They might also be added to soups and stews. They were important vitamin sources for people who had little in the way of fresh vegetables for several months. Dried beans and peas or perhaps a little dried corn or some sweet potatoes were mostly what would have been stored for winter. For a treat, you might have gotten "leather breeches beans." These are string beans that have been dried in their hulls and are soaked overnight in water to reconstitute them, then they are cooked to death as we southerners like most of our vegetables. To dry them they were strung on heavy sewing thread and hung up. With the thread going through the ends, sometimes pairs would stick out from the string, looking like a pair of jeans on a clothes line, but the were "tough as leather" till cooked, hence the name.

This is just one of many wild greens. I should be used early in its life. Pick off the tuff stems and any insect eaten leaves, rinse well, and cook in a little water with salt pepper and any seasoning you would like. Bacon, onion, or butter is often used. I like most greens sautéed in olive oil, then drizzled with pepper vinegar. A few leaves torn up into a salad, add a nice tang!

Since you can still buy "Heart of Palm" in a can, I'll give you a recipe for it. I prefer mine just steamed with butter. Of course you can use palmetto hearts as a fine substitute. I bet you could find a farmer who would let you go into a field that is being overtaken by this scrub plant and you could spend the day pulling the centers out of them. If you are using the palmetto centers, you must pull off the outer sections that are tough and break the hearts like you would asparagus, so that you only use the tender middles. Once you try it, you will understand what I am saying. They may also be stir fried like Chinese cabbage.

2 14 oz. cans of palm, drained; 2 tablespoons finely minced scallions; 1/4 cup salad oil; 3 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon paprika; 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper. Cut the hearts of palm into thin strips and arrange on a small, flat platter. Mix together the other ingredients and pour over the palm. Marinate at room temperature

Boiled Corn Pudding:
(8-10 servings)

2 10oz. pkgs. frozen whole kernel corn; 2 quarts chicken broth; 1/4 cup butter or margarine; 1 1/3 cups white corn meal (I use either); 1/2 cup flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 egg; milk

Place the frozen corn in a strainer to thaw, reserve liquid. Heat the chicken broth and butter in a large kettle and let simmer for 5 minutes. Sift together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Measure the corn liquid and add enough milk to bring measure to 1/2 cup, then add egg and beat till light. Quickly mix the liquid and dry ingredients and fold in the corn - don't work it too much. Bring the broth to a rapid boil and drop in the corn mixture a tablespoonful at a time. Dip your spoon in the broth occasionally to keep batter from sticking. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Uncover, stir well, and serve as a potato substitute. I like to leave it in larger bits, more like southern dumplings. It is extremely tasty and everyone loves it. Bits of ham stirred in at the last minute make this a "one pot meal."

Here is more on prickly pears: http://www.wwmag.net/pricklycactus.htm
Here is more on Native American foods: http://www.ancientnative.org/foods.htm
This link is for civil war recipes and uses originals from our targeted time period: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Barracks/1369/more_recipes.html