Wild Chokecherry - In Surival & Wilderness Living [Fruit Leather, Jam, Juice, Raw]
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Everything you wanted to know about chokecherries and more. From collecting to processing to consumption. How to make a living from this tart wild edible.
I cover fruit leather, jam, juice and raw consumption. I go over toxicity and how to remedy the cyanogeic glycoside present in the seeds.
Research
a) CYANOGENIC GLYCOSIDES IN CASSAVA AND BAMBOO SHOOTS
www.foodstanda...
b) TRADITIONAL PLANT FOODS OF CANADIAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
www.fao.org/wai...
Symptoms of cyanide intoxication include rapid respiration, drop in blood pressure, rapid pulse, dizziness, headache, stomach pains, vomiting, diarrhoea, mental confusion, twitching and convulsions. In extreme cases, it may even result in death.
While much negative can be said about the chokecherry, they shouldn't be ignored. Records agree that Native American tribes used and collected chokecherries in great abundance. Animals also readily consume chokecherries including bears, racoons, chipmunks and birds. For many Native Americans, chokecherries was highly sought, and when available, was in fact, the most important fruit in their diet.
Chokecherries were eaten by Iroquois, Ojibwa, Algonquin and Cree, among many others. They were prepared many different ways. The Iroquois made soup from chokecherries and powdered them mixed them into dried meat. The Ojibwa mashed them and dried them into cakes. Others added them to meat stew and mixed them with grease or fish eggs or pounded them together with fish heads or fish tails or fish meat. Chokecherries were a staple food for many tribes. They were so important, that tribes like the Cree often planted the seeds around their homes.
While they contain a huge amount of calories at 150 per 100 grams, they unfortunately can not be eaten easily in their raw native form - not especially in enough quantity to satiate a hungry survivalist.
Not all is lost with the chokecherry, however, for it can, with the help of certain processing, be made totally edible and almost enjoyable. Long before our modern times, chokecherries were primarily eaten as a dried staple in the Native diet. In fact, no other berry was as important to these groups and eaten in comparable quantity as the chokecherry.
For chokecherries, it may be that finding just the right bush to harvest from - with the right ripeness - is the real trick. Then again, it is very likely that chokecherries are something that can only be used sparingly, added to pemmican, mixed in with other sweater berries, or eaten as a light snack, rather than as a complete meal replacement. Regardless, chokecherries are both plentiful and energy dense, so they can not be ignored in wilderness living.
Chokecherry
Prunus virginiana
Other common names: Choke Cherry, Eastern Chokecherry, Red Choke Cherry, Red Chokecherry
Family: Rose Family (Rosaceae)
Group: Cherries
Distinctive features: Shrub
Similar species:
• Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) - a tree.
• Pin Cherry (Prunus pensylvanica) - a tree.
Flowers: Spring; White; 5 parts (petals)
Leaves: Alternate, Simple, Toothed; Alternate, simple.
Height: 8 m (26 ft)
Fruit/Seeds: Black fruit.
Habitat: Fields and Open Areas; Open areas.
Uses: Edible fruits, although they are VERY tart!
Edible: Edible but extremely tart, hence the name!
Native/Non-native: Native
Status: Common.
Notes: The fruits are edible, although very sour - hence the shrub's name.
Origin and Meaning of Names:
Scientific Name: virginiana: of Virginia, Virginian
Use code "WoodBeard" to get 10% off ASAT Camo: www.asatcamo.com
Merch (t-shirts): teespring.com/...
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #1 НАЧАЛО ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ [Новый сезон] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/380Q7gLWGvk/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm an Oglalla Lakota (Sioux) and we mashed up Choke Cherries with Buffalo meat and talo into a thick paste we call wasn'a (wah-snah) and it's a highly nutritious meal giving us much energy while off on a raiding party , we just ate this so we didnt have to light a fire in enemy territory and possibly give ourselves away!!!
I cultivate a few chokecherries in my yard. I mix the fruit, after typical prep, with whatever apples that are ready at the time. I am big on mixed fruit preserves. I'm going to build a sun drying rack this year. much experimenting to be done on dried fruit and other foodstuffs. Good ideas from John Lord, as usual!
Yeah, I think apple would help for sure. Add some sugar to it, and fix the bitterness.
It's amazing that you make the effort to film all of your adventures in nature because I don't imagine it's very easy and is probably time consuming. Thanks for taking back your experiences with you and sharing them. Great stuff you really should have a tv show I'd watch it!
Thanks buddy! You're right, I do have to look for it, especially living in Southern Ontario. That's what keeps pulling me North. I can find hints in pockets around here, but it's just not the same. I find if I don't at least try, I start to get really uncentered. But it's also pretty hard to make a living from the bush or even nearer the bush...such is modern life :(
My grandmother and her sisters made a chokecherry jam that also included other berries like gooseberry. Delicious. I think mixing in some more palatable sweeter berries makes a big difference.
For sure! Might have to give that a try!
I have chokecherries in my yard, but leave them for the birds. They're very pretty -- like clusters of grapes in a tapestry -- plus it seems that they're around when the birds are running out of other food (mostly robins).
But I do pick them on walks especially when they're drying or dried. Every tree seems to be different. Some can be quite sweet.
its amazing you get around to likeing and replying to nearly all the comments.
Wow! You've done so much research! Fun to see the family joining in the harvest and prep. Thank you for the great visuals and narration.
There the most Powerful Berry on the Planet!! way more powerful than even Blueberry, love drinking the juice!!
I've come across the channel from many different angles unintentionally. Cabin building, camping, and I've been looking into native options for permaculture stuff lately and you came up yet again. That's really cool, great content man!
love chokecherrys, always have,
easy to eat a quart at a time right off the tree/bush
Well I finally sat down to watch this and I would have to say you have an awesome wife with a lot of patience. If I had brought that many chokecherries into the kitchen as many times as you have I would be deemed to the garage forever. I'm sure I would enjoy it of course I would eat anything. I know your dilemma with the infatuation of making something palatable it's a frustration all of us face that are trying to make something unpalatable palatable. But that's who we are. Great video your kid cracks me up
Hahahaah! Yeah, I tend to do that with everything....but that's the only way to master anything. Just keep beating it up until it does what you want it to LOL
I tried to make chokecherry jam once. It needed so much sugar that by the end I figured there wasn't much point.
You likely pick them too early then. But they're always going to take a lot of sugar but that's the point because they keep some of their tart while simultaneously having the sugar side and it makes for one of the best tasting Jelly's there are.
Youre crazy. These are good raw. I also used to drink RealLemon juice with candy
Mix into lard with sugar and salt. Really helps. Im cree and chokecherries are a delicacy. Ive always found the lard mix helps big time. Can even throw dried meat and get a form of pemmican out of it. As far as ive known choke cherries were never eaten alone. Always sided with something else. At the most i can eat a bowl before it becomes too much while plain. Awesome job on the family participation. Doing a great job at fathering. Thumbs up
Thanks for that, I've often wondered just how they would have been used. I don't mind them too bad in fruit leather, but I agree, they are not a meal by themselves. Sounds like it would be good with lard and meat as pemmican.
Significant calories and nutrition in a chokecherry is in the seed of the drupe. One cup (154g) of pitted chokecherries is 249 calories, 88% carbs/7% protein/3% fats. The seed is 10% (10g/100g seed) fat, or 138 calories per 154 g. I have not found a weight basis for protein although protein is contained in the seed and, in general, prunus drupes have been found to be 33% protein overall. Given that the flesh is only 7% protein, the potential protein from the seed could be substantial. The seed also contains cyanidin derivative anthocyanin-rich extracts (AREs) related to effective colon cancer prevention.
Looking at the drupes in your pot, they look red. AFAIK native Americans harvested chokecherry when it was ripe (various coloration but showing no hint of red). Also, they tasted the fruit from each bush.
The sense was that some shrubs had fruit that was for long-term use while other plants yielded fruit that could be eaten immediately off the bush. The fruit was therefore segregated depending on its astringency. Fruit processed into fruit leather was processed by pulverizing fresh drupes, both flesh and pit. The product of pulverizing was also used to make pemmican.
The USDA specifies that boiling or drying chokecherry pits neutralizes the hydrocyanic acid. See ref:
www.plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_prvi.pdf
The hydrogen cyanide is removed by raising the entire temperature of the mash above 80 deg F (27 C). The boiling point of hydrocyanic acid is the same. Knowing that, I would recommend only boiling it outdoors.
Some native American peoples would store chokecherry for the winter by harvesting the entire branch with the fruit on. The dried fruit would be picked off during the winter. The dried fruit would be ground twice into flour, and then it would be wind-winnowed to separate out the hard parts of the pits.
Great information. What is your source referring to the temperature that destroys the HCN? In that PDF I only see "Either boiling or drying the fruit will neutralize the naturally occurring hydrocyanic acid. " I have yet to find anything definitive...but I'm assuming you have given that you reference precise temperatures.
HCN is not destroyed per se. It is rather driven off as a volatile (either by boiling off or by drying off, given the low boiling point of the chemical.) IMO that is the best way to eliminate it since many HCN reaction products can be equally or even more toxic, and those products are much more difficult to remove safely. Also, it is quite possible that HCN is also utilized by organisms to produce key nutritional factors (e.g. cyanidine, etc.). This would explain why most animals can safely intake HCN at a rate of 0.25% body weight. Trace amounts of HCN are found in the atmosphere. The primary reaction pathways controlling atmospheric HCN are with high altitude UV and radicals OH and O.
I consider the following references to be authoritative for my purposes:
webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C74908&Mask=4
pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/hydrogen_cyanide
www.fao.org/docrep/X5042E/x5042E0b.htm
The temperatures I cited are relatively safe at standard conditions. The exact data is in the references. Since I boil mash at temperatures that significantly exceed the BP of HCN and for relatively long periods of time, I expect that my taste buds are sufficient proof for final product acceptance (i.e. no trace of almond or peach).
52RH Flight Is the astringency caused by the HCN or is that something different?
With my new outback innovation (using a small/smallest pressure cooker (2/3, 4 quart), I am thinking that you can steam off the astringent skins, and cook the fruit meat for palatability.
American persimmons have astringent skins (and gum up the tongue and mouth), but goes away when mature, or "properly cooked." Choke cherries lose their astringency when mature. This suggests that the skin has the astringency. "Properly cooked" and deskinned berries should resolve the astringency issues.
Like a steam juicer for berries, use the pressure cooker and pressure-steam cook the fruit. Steam, then strain/drain out the juice and squeeze out the meat from a jam cloth separating the nut seed and the skins. Then cook, boil, or pressure-cook down the meat into juice, jam, pemmican, or fruit leather by cooking/boiling out the remaining astringency. If the skins can be "properly cooked" into palatability, then only removing the seeds from the berry, then steaming and cooking, makes for a safe edible.
Worth a try. Any idea what to do with the seeds? Full of fat and protein, but the shells, ugh. Far too sharp IMO, but probably okay when kept fairly moist with the remaining fruit, crushed. Still, fruit leather, skins and seeds removed, is by far the best. I would say most people would 'tolerate' it, so skins likely contain most of the bitterness - I would agree.
Johnny Choke-seed across the landscape !!! The more the landscape is prepped for SHTF, the easier the food resources will be. Same for landscaping with apples, pears, cherries, walnut, hickories, chestnut, oaks, mulberries, elderberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, blueberries, wild rice, garlic, onion, leeks, chives, yams, sweet potatoes, domestic potatoes, turnips, beets, land cress, water cress, ...
Easier way for processing spring/fall tree tapping. Sugar maples 4% sugar. 400 gallons = 16 gallons syrup = 1+ gallon sugar crystals/hard-boil sugar candy. Use pressure-steam cooker for boiling, steaming out excess water, concentrating sugars. 4 quart (1 gallon) stainless steel pressure cooker (or larger pressure canner) concentrates 96 oz sap (3/4 full) into 4 oz (final) syrup. Industrial method - 3 pressure cookers (2 steaming, 1 condensing). Pour syrup into condensor for final syrup boiling. Use the steam (with copper tubing and wet cold cloth) and recapture all the sterilized fresh water from the sap (distillery coils).
Put this syrup or sugar crystals with choke cherry jam for a viable caloric edible.
Sugar sap trees:
Maple - (highest) sugar, Canadian, red, Japanese, silver, norway,
Box elder, American sycamore, American Sweet gum
Birch (paper, Asian white, yellow, cherry, black, downy, himalaya, red/river, Japanese white)
Osage Orange, Ironwood
Walnut (English, American, black, white, heartnut, butternut, Nor Cal, CAL black), walnut-species hickories, pecan
Beech - English, American, linden
Some considerations for tapping softwood cottonwoods, aspens, and poplars (cottonwood said to taste like dirty socks).
Plant northern sugar beets (and steam process) gives sweet sugar beet juice and edible beet mush.
Same options for processing oak acorns, and quickly pressure-steam/boil out tannins, or boil out walnut hulls for iodine tincture.
Same options for processing boiling unclean water into sterilized steamed water, or steam-sterilize distill sea water into seasalt and condensed fresh water.
Pressure-steam and hot air convection "char" carbonize stinging nettles, blackberry, raspberry leaves for plant salts and put into food or salted choke cherry and tree sugar jam.
baby a live
Well, that's good then, for the Persimmons. It means you don't really have to wait so long to harvest them, you just have to skin them first.
I do like the research you do, and all the information you share. That is s very good job! Thanks Chris!!
You're welcome! It's not for everyone, I realize, but if people want to learn, it's there! Putting the time in now, will help with our next wilderness living challenge!
That's great and useful info Chris, and a lot of work. I have never eaten chokecherry but may give it a try again. Before the sugar company push in the early 20th century bitter was a central taste, but no more. For the dry product after you has ground it fine, you might want to try using a flour sifter to remove the seed shell fragment. My mother and grandmother always sifted their flour as they expected that the flour of the day would have such things in it You can still buy sifters with different meshes (finer flour for cakes than for bread) with might make that easier.
Good idea. I may try that. I was considering try to float off the shell since it appears to be very dry and woody. I worry that I may also float off all that fat. The seeds in appear to be in the middle and would be a mixture of fat and protein...but these too may float. I may play around with a few things. Part of the problem may be that both end up not going through! My research has found that even the Natives didn't have a great way of sorting out the seeds and just crushed, ate, and dealt with the consequences LOL. We may end up there as well, though I will say that the fruit leather is by far better than crushed seeds and would be very highly concentrated sugar! I sure got a lot of gas from eating all that! hahaha
I normaly just make a syrup with the flesh, but I decided to prepare the seeds this year as well. I seperated the pits from the flesh after the remaining mash from making the syrup cooled down and paned out the pulp, the flesh floats and remains suspended in the water better than the kernels so I fished it out with a strainer. I wanted to separate the bitter flesh from the kernels like a few specific native American tribes do, I prefer to avoid the astringency if possible.
I dried them, and ground the seeds with a coffee grinder (mind you I could have just use a crank grinder on fine setting too), strained the flour out with a very fine mesh strainer, and repeated grinding and straining untill just bits of the shells remained. The kernels grind easier than the shell, so you can grind the nutritious part after fully drying very easily, and leave behind the harder to grind shells. You can save the seeds and store them, grinding and using them as needed for fresh flour each time you want to use it.
I hadn't done anything with the flour yet, but I think it would be good combined in pancake mix, breads, or other cooked bread and pastry based foods. It is probably a very good idea to boil the flour then dry again to get rid of as much risk for cyanide poisoning. Ideally I could boil the flour with something acidic, as the cyanogenic compound breaks down with acidic solutions quicker, though that would probably ruin the flavor.
It's probably best to do it outside, keeping your face away or with a mask on, if you breath in the flour it will make you feel terrible for a little with the dust producing cyanide directly in your lungs.
To get the nutrient the bitterness is endured. Good work on the ground clearing.
Yup...got to suck it up! I gotta say, I had some brutal gas eating all that LOL.
I've often wondered about these. I've eaten my fair share of them but after reading Hatchet at a young age have always been afraid to eat too many lol Great informative video Chris
My son and I listened to that one on audio book driving up North! Good book, I guess he figured out how to live off the land!!!
They say once you cook it and boil it, the cyanide in the seeds dissipates and then it's all good from there.
You do know to be carful of the seed? Its got a bunch of cinied in it.
You can eat them the ones we have down here grow on actual trees insted of bushes.
It does not work in a shtf thing but the best way to get nutrients out of them that was passed down to me. Is actuly make wine out of them.
And yes it takes a bunch of them if you only use them.
But our wild grapes get ripe about the same time.
They don't actually have any cyanide in them but they have a chemical that if you combine it with the stomach acid inside of yourself will then produce cyanide. But the seed pits become neutralized if you heat them up or leave them out in the sun like they do with pemmican.
Another extremely useful video! Nice!
Thanks Ben!
I was just watching Ray Mears the other day covering choke cherries in his "wild foods" series. He was shown by native americans how they would grind the entire fruit into a paste and dry them as cakes on a rack. He seemed to find the result quite palatable. Mind you, this would have been consumed along with jerky and stored grains for a diverse diet. It's something worth trying at least.
I think I saw that one. He was probably being generous :) I will say that I'm sort of craving it now, so there's that. It's not all bad, and I could eat it. I do need to try with fat and dried meat. By itself, it's okay, and edible, for sure.
He had already eaten some pretty sketchy things by that point in the show, his palate may have been compromised... I do think that somewhere in the middle of all this, there is a sustainable, and even pleasant diet plan.
I boil the fruit and strain and drink the juice
nice video Chris
Thanks Michael!
I love raw chokecherrys! I would go outside just to eat them and I did not feel sick at all .But we would only eat them when they where ripe ,like black in color ripe and those taste so good. I also did not eat the seed.
I think after eating so many of the red/purple, we give up by the time they turn black! At least when I was a kid. I'll have to try some once they get super dark! We always just ate them and spit them out as a gag. Then we'd ripe them off the stem and whip them at each other like a handful of shot LOL
sound like a lot of fun. Oh and it is nice to see a youtuber who is so active in the comment section! (:
Soup and pamakin. Deer meat as a cut. Love it
Interesting video
Thanks Linkless.
ate lots growing up. They were always along the train tracks and trails that my friends and i would bike. Always waited until they were almost black though. never light red or purple. Always interesting sir!!
When do you figure they turned black? Ever try them after a frost?
The Wooded Beardsman just a little later in the year. about the time the animals really clean them up. bears will bust the branches to get at them. dont recall the exact timing for them.
Must be around September. I'll have to try again then. I remember letting the urban wildlife tell me when my corn was ready...they pulled them all down overnight and left me with nothing!!!
good video. thanks
Thanks Jbele!
Why would you pour the juice down the drain? It makes a wonderful jelly and syrup. I would love to "cultivate" at least one tree on my property in order to always have chokecherrys.
Wow, I always thought of fruit as a very low energy food. What is it about choke cherries that makes them different? Or was I just mistaken about the energy content in fruit? Does eating large amount of choke cherries affect your bowl regularity? I typically find that I be come a little too regular in my bathroom visits if I eat too much fruit.
For sure it does. I ate a full tray of fruit leather...and I had so much gas...and a bright red...you know what. It was easier to eat the fruit leather than the raw fruit....but still not "good for you." I do think we're omnivores for a reason! Everything in moderation.
It has been my fifty-year career as a practitioner in the field of human nutrition and also as a college level educator of Health, Safety and Nutrition that included “Comparative Anatomy and Physiology”. We are not carnivores or omnivores or herbivores. Protein from nuts or seeds is for building purposes primarily as is the carbohydrate category which includes starches, fruits and vegetables. Indeed, chokecherries in any form but preferably raw or dried at low temperatures, is essentially for cellular energy production. If the rest of the diet contains animal products which have no fiber, then the low energy level can be attributed to the sludge in the circulatory system with perhaps, some of the waste being metabolized into solution temporarily. Fruits and vegetables are systemic toners and cleansers.
these are really cool!!
Thanks Jake!
we could do a fan fare choke berry grind and bake this fall lol, bushman style.
I subscribed solely for his name lmao
Are these also called pokeberries
Black cherries taste rather awful too. In my area, (central Minnesota), the hardwood forests around here are dotted with large black cherry trees and I always wondered how they tasted since they are apparently edible. Ate one, and it tasted like a damn lemon.
I live an hour from the twin cities
almost 10k subs man!!
Getting close!
Your son knows the deal. "It looks like chokecherry, feels like chokecherry, smells like chokecherry, TASTES like chokecherry, sure glad I didn't step in it.
Lonnie from Far North Bushcraft and Survival ate Water Lilly leaves.
Yeah, I think the leaves are quite alright, but the tuber, no! I think the big confusion is between the lily and the lotus. The lotus is quite edible, seeds and tuber, but I've yet to locate any nearby.
The Wooded Beardsman Well, you got me there. Water Lilly, Lotus, they're all graveyards for spoons and buzzbaits. Happy trails 👍👍✌
For bass too! Just gotta work the edge :)
I thought the seeds were poisonous with cyanide?
I don't know when exactly you're supposed to pick them for them to taste good, though. I heard it was when they turned black. They just did, here & they have a decent flavor, but it very quickly evaporates & is replaced by a horribly bitter aftertaste that became the only taste in a matter of seconds. If they don't get much better than that, I'd imagine you shouldn't eat them raw.
comments are not showing up?
Have you ever made wild plum jam?
In what states can you find wild chokecherries? And could you do a piece on the possible edible properties of kudzu?
I've never heard of kudzu...chokecherries are found near the Southern boarder to the North of Canada.
and here is another one dor the interaction score.. pew pew...
Even the animals around here won't eat chokecherries. I guess that tells us something.
Your picking them to early! They should not be red they should be black. As far as them being poisonous with the seeds you don't have to look very far you're an outdoors guy talking about pemmican just look at the people who make pemmican I e the people that surround me the Lakota and they definitely do not sort the seeds out they go straight into the pemmican as well. Depending on where you're at if you can pick the chokecherries after the first Frost they become substantially better as the sugar gets fixed into the berry after that point.
But the pits inside of chokecherries are supposed to be highly poisonous. I don't get why you would make that mixture that included the crushed pits? The fruit is supposed to be fine but all cherry pits are bad news.
Aren't the pits high in cyanide?
I have to wonder if some raw honey would have a great impact on the flavor of the chokecherry and the honey may be found in the wild ( if you get lucky lol) great video , maybe add some honey comb and make a gum like product ,
For sure! Makes a great jam for the same reason. Sugar does some nice things to the flavour. I'll have to try with apple juice, since I know I can find wild apple easily enough. Honey is a bit of a trick! I'd have to raid someone's bee boxes LOL
Okay maybe not lol but find a good bee tree with some smoke in cool weather lol my dad did that when i was a kid but i never had luck locating the trees ,he would follow the path of the bee , I never got that skill down, he said a bee always circles then flies toward the tree follow that path and locate the tree ( not me lol ).
Ah, that would be a cool trick!
well , I'm thinking that the natives prized the chokeberry more for it's straight arrow shafts more that anything else , , but I don't have any evidence to support that. . just my opinion , , but it may be that this wild bush ' tree is just such an energic invasive species that it just took over the area where it was planted , , , although , having said that , , I cannot throw out the wild blackberry / bluerry bush , , which is much much more preferable / palatable. . The Natives had to be aware of that , , sheesh ,, how could they not ? ?
Records show they used it. I guess it was better than not using it LOL. I find myself graving it a little right now...!!
Wait isn't the seeds inside the berry poisonous? Cianide poisoning?
only a few minutes in but would you say the leather is compared to a fruit roll up?
Yes, very similar, but obviously with less sugar added! It's chewy for sure. I would guess if you added some apple juice and a bit of grape, you'd have a fruit roll up!
To remove the glycoside inhibitors from seed endosperm you need to crush all the seeds open, and let it properly oxidize spread in a thin layer. Thats how kyanids get out. If not, both liver and kidneys get messed up. As far as it is remembered in Moravia in memoars of our missionaries and nobility returned from Canada in 17 hundreds ( Im guessing here. The "last Mohican era. The very last of them lived his last years in a Czech mission station.), it was done by spreading it on flat edible leaves with rough surface such as burdocks and drying.
More, I dont have info on this, but I simply dont see possible for this type of fruit to have calory density as claimed. You ment dried product, yes?
Beardsman, would you be interested in trading seeds? I do a lot of seedkeeping of old crops and wild plants in the very heart of Europe. We have some good stuff ranging from Canada to Siberia.
I'm not sure I would have any seeds to trade. Just look mostly at what grows wild and do a bit of planting. What did you have in mind? Send me an email, you can find it in the "about section."
I would be interested 👋
I have wild Prunus virginiana seeds
chokecherry wine, vinegar and alcohol/shine ???
Sure! It would work!
if the seeds are toxic, how come you roll them into fruit leather?
Once cooked, the cyanide is rendered safe to eat.
thank you, I will make some jam this year.
New product: Organic, hand harvested "choke" Rollups!
Mmmmmmmm!
Just out of curiosity, has anyone seen these in NY? I don't think I have but...
Keep an eye out, you should have some around. Looks like they fit right around a band between the boarder of Canada and the U.S.
Many decades ago, my parents sent me to summer camp in Monroe County (upstate NY.) There were tons of chokecherries around. Among other things, the camp counselors warned us not to eat any because they were "poisonous." That summer is when I came to the realization that I knew a lot more about nature than the camp counselors did.
My area, in Franklin county (northern adirondacks) we have millions of these shrubs. My last time collecting I wandered maybe 50 yds from my backdoor and came back with a 5 gallon bucket full. I came to find out how to make them edible due to their abundance and just got lucky finding an awesome channel.
Only thing that sucks about these is the smell of the broken branches and leaves! Something about it is just... yuck!
Yeah, now that you mention it! Must be due to their toxic nature. The tree sure doesn't want you to mess around with it.
Ha Ha so cute! Want the truth? Just ask a kid!
Yup, they can't lie through a taste test lol
Interesting how CC seeds are toxic to humans but Birds, Bears, etc... survive just fine on them....
Aren't the pits high in cyanide?