The Dogwoods and Redbuds are flowering in Kentucky, they told me.
“Did you know that Redbud blossoms are edible?” I asked.
There was silence on the phone, or perhaps it was hesitant mumbling.
“I haven’t tried it myself,” I said. “Our Texas Redbud doesn’t put out that many blossoms…”
“And the seed pods are supposed to be good, too,” I added.
“Hah!” they said, or perhaps it was “hmm”.
“I’ll try one,” I said.
I reached up and pulled a reddish-brown pod off our tree. I put it in my mouth.
It was fuzzy on the outside (as are the undersides of Texas Redbud leaves — the fuzziness being a xeric thing). I chewed, and I chewed, trying to get beyond the fuzziness.
“Well,” I said. “I can report that the pod itself is a little… stringy. But the peas in the pod taste like…”
And here I stumbled looking for a description of the taste.
It reminded me of a time long ago. It must have been fifth grade, because for some reason also Tim Parker occupies that slot in my hazy memory. We were on a field trip, and there was a… well, a field of peas growing nearby, and we got to pick and eat as much as we wanted. As I chewed on the Redbud pod, biting on the tiny seeds trying to get a taste of them, I was reminded of the taste of those peas in that field way back then.
“…they taste like peas,” I said.
But the taste didn’t last long, because the peas were so small.
The memory of years ago dissipated. So I took another seed pod off the tree, this one bigger than the first. I put it in my mouth and began to chew.
This one was not only bigger but was fuzzier and required more chewing. So I chewed. And I chewed. And I bit on the peas. But there was no taste of anything. There was no flashback to 1969. There was just fuzzy, pithy podness.
So I spit out the pulp (quietly, because I was still on the phone).
In conclusion, I can tell you this: Redbud pods might well be edible in some parts of the country. That is, Eastern Redbud seed pods might be good in a salad. But based on my recent experience, fuzzy Texas Redbud seed pods — not so much.