{"id":4598,"date":"2017-04-15T08:56:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-15T14:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=4598"},"modified":"2017-04-15T08:56:27","modified_gmt":"2017-04-15T14:56:27","slug":"on-redbud-seed-pods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2017\/04\/15\/on-redbud-seed-pods\/","title":{"rendered":"On Redbud Seed Pods"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dogwoods and Redbuds are flowering in Kentucky, they told me. <\/p>\n

“Did you know that Redbud blossoms are edible?” I asked.<\/p>\n

There was silence on the phone, or perhaps it was hesitant mumbling.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t tried it myself,” I said. “Our Texas Redbud<\/em> doesn’t put out that many blossoms…” <\/p>\n

“And the seed pods are supposed to be good, too,” I added.<\/p>\n

“Hah!” they said, or perhaps it was “hmm”.<\/p>\n

“I’ll try one,” I said.<\/p>\n

I reached up and pulled a reddish-brown pod off our tree. I put it in my mouth.<\/p>\n

It was fuzzy on the outside (as are the undersides of Texas Redbud leaves — the fuzziness being a xeric<\/a> thing). I chewed, and I chewed, trying to get beyond the fuzziness.<\/p>\n

“Well,” I said. “I can report that the pod itself is a little… stringy. But the peas in the pod taste like…”<\/p>\n

And here I stumbled looking for a description of the taste.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

“…they taste like peas,<\/em>” I said. <\/p>\n

But the taste didn’t last long, because the peas were so small.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So I spit out the pulp (quietly, because I was still on the phone).<\/p>\n

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<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4599,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598\/revisions\/4599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}