One Of The Oldest Known Foods for Humans. Is it as good as legend suggests?
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- Опубліковано 16 лис 2022
- The ancient author Homer who lived approximately 2800 years ago said that there was a food so good that if you ate it in a foreign land you would forget your homeland. That food is the hackberry. It is a wild edible that grows on every continent excluding Antarctica. Is it as good as legend suggests?
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Hey you do realize everytime you say “the Greeks said” you’re actually just saying “ what ancient kemet taught the Greeks” or “ what the Greeks learned from kemet” right? You do know that right? You do know everything the Greeks knew was taught to them
By kemet. Modern day Egypt after colonization and renaming.
& the crazier part is Kendra capital was actually in modern day america or what they called the land of mur. ( the land of love (reproduction) or the home land) A-Mur-ica.
Just saying because you guys love to quote the Greeks over and over for a white source of all knowledge but somehow don’t know the Greeks we’re literally created by kemet
My point is. No racial at all in fact. My point if people keep speaking about wanting to know real history to learn knowledge, yet only use white history and end up lost in a void of lost knowledge. People need to look at real history because those few years of white history were used to cover up millions of years of black history in order to claim that knowledge. Perfect example the Greeks in modern day western history. The Greeks are taught to be the originators of science math music alchemy and more! A TOTAL lie and will leave anyone lost when seeking truth knowledge of our human past. What may seem racial is still the truth seek the truth and the truth shall set you free. They need racial division because it itself hides the truth.
Example. Here you said the Greeks told us they were eating this way back when having learned it from the black people in kemet and the cultures they shared with the Greeks, later fake native Indians claim to have been eating the same thing having learned it from the native black tribes that were aboriginal to America because those Siberia aka fake native Indians did the same thing the Greeks did to kemet to steal the land. See how they hide real history but it always shows up if you know the truth.
Why did it take you so long to walk by sticks, to find a stick?! That's a waste of time and energy. In the wilderness you try and use as little time and energy as possible, saving the calories for a hunt, or to make traps, or to gather.
One thing to take into account is that in ancient times, sweets were kinda rare and a treat. Sugar is a daily part of our lives so the specialness is kinda reduced.
Great comment! Our tastes likely evolved to make us prioritize rare higher calorie foods.
Hmmm....honey has always been around.
@@johnnyh-pay5843 Spot-on! In fact, I think in Karen Pryor's "Nursing Your Baby" book, (from almost 50 yrs ago), she touches on this idea, and I think she mentions that only whales have a higher mother's milk sugar content than human's. So in my opinion, there's very likely some genetic material involved in terms of teste and our tendency toward sugars overconsumption/addiction. Nutritionist Aubrey Eaton, in her book "The F-Plan Diet" points out that, according to research it's estimated that aboriginal, pre-industrial diets contained only about 4 to 6 lbs. of sugars consumed on an annual basis.. So in my opinion, and generally speaking, we're consuming waay too much sugar. Perhaps a good basis for giving credence to a more paleo-focused mindset when thinking about health. As a society, we're continually adding more and more distance between us and Nature (health/healing effect). Not just nutritionally, but very much to do with its effect on our mental health!
It's why everybody is fat
@@carllelendt5452 it's poison in large quantities.
You have to remember that we've changed most foods so much over the ages that most apples back then would have been no sweeter than a carrot. I can imagine coming across something naturally sweet like a date or Hackberry and being blown away by how good it tasted.
No, old apples were more sour than anything, but still subtly sweet
Speaking of apples, it's funny how it's still not very common knowledge that Johnny Apple Seed didn't plant apple trees during his travels for eating, but instead for making hard cider (which was honestly a truly respectable endeavor imo).
Some of the sweetest apples come from wild crabapples.
A ripe apple even back then would be fairly sweet.
@@The_Gallowglass not as sweet as today, that's the point
In medieval times, Europeans treated sugar as a spice. It was rare, expensive, and added flavor to a dish, so they would store it together with the rest of their spices. We still do that with some recipes, adding a bit of sugar here or there to balance the flavor.
How is it treated in America. Sugar I mean. I thought everywhere Sugar is treated or thought of as a spice.
@@theMAN3554 In the US we tend to think of sweeteners as a category all to their own compared to "spices". (which are typically intense, hot, savory, etc.)
It is what do you mean ?
I think that, as Americans, we consume more sugar than other nations and that, since spices are used in pretty low quantities compared to the sugar added to a batch of cookies, for example, we tend not to think of it as a spice but as an ingredient. It is a little strange we don't think of it as a spice, though, considering how similar it is to spices
@TheWeeaboo If you were to store it in a different spot, when thinking of it as an ingredient it would probably be stored with the flour, rice, etc.
I've nibbled a few hackberries here in the Arkansas Ozarks, so I can tell you what they taste like. The disappointingly thin outer skin tastes exactly like a ripe date. It's pleasantly sweet.The nut inside is very hard and can break a weakened tooth.The only taste I get from the whole thing is the pleasant date-like sweetness of the outer skin. The nut within is too tiny to get a kernel out of. I would think that if you gathered enough of them, boiled them down, and strained out the liquid they would make a pleasant syrup. However, gathering these in quantity would be challenging. I welcome replies.
I'm not that far from you in Tennessee, you want to start guerrilla planting these things across the region? seems pretty traditional to our ancient past
That’s what I thought. Unappetizing and almost inedible. That’s whey we don’t grow them commercially. 😃😃😃😃😃
Do we have them in Australia? I wonder...
Here is central Texas they're everywhere. I see the seeds in bird poop quite often so I knew they were at least eddible but there's no meat there. Just the skin and the seed.
@@kingmasterlord nectarines and peaches bro, please
It' also important to note the American hackberry is a little different from the Eurasian hackberry you can see in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, which is probably closer to what Homer might have described.
Yes and there is the southern hackberry called the sweet berry and the northern common hackberry in America.
After some searching I'm now confused. The plant that is supposed to translate to hackberry or hagberry in Swedish is from an entirely different genus, with astringent fruit, the Hägg (Which is in the Prunus family.)
Meanwhile, the Celtis species Homer would have been referring to is C. australis, which according to the ever so reliable and entirely trustworthy source of Wikipedia is believed to be the "lotus" on which the Lotophagii subsisted.
This would make sense since he pretty much claimed that it had addictive and mind altering properties, even though it apparently just tasted kind of decently good.
we now need hearth and homestead to try some c australis to see if they forget what hackberries taste like
Lotophagii comes from Lotos, not lotus. It's a jujube.
Both English and Spanish colonists often named plants and animals in the Americas after similar looking plants and animals in Europe. So "European hackberry" and "American hackberry" are different things.
Ferment it and it will have addictive and mind altering properties.
Interesting thread, wish the channel would add his input.
Ομήρου : Οδύσσεια - Ι90: ("τῶν δ᾿ ὅς τις λωτοῖο φάγοι μελιηδέα καρπόν,"). In Odyssey Homer does not refer to this particular tree, that's just a speculation. Just refers to a fruit that is called Lotus - Λωτός, with sweet taste. Nowadays we call "Λωτό" the persimmon, but who knows really, afterall it might be just a metaphor.
Hackberry liquor used to be a traditional Christmas drink in France, nicknamed "window liquor" because you would see it resting behind the windows of every house.
For 1.2 kg of hackberries
1 litre of 40° fruit brandy
200 ml water
75 g sugar
Place the bottle on a sunny window sill for 40 days before filtering your liquor.
I've made wine out of hackberries for decades. That's a concoctions that will help you with homesickness.
And probably what Homer was referring to.
Thanks, Squirrelly Dan 🤣
Are you sure it doesn't just make you forget where you live...?
In Texas the BEST hackberry for consumption is the "Desert Hackberry",Celtis ehrenbergiana. It's not really a tree, more of a bush. Or brush. Cattlemen do not like them, but the cattle do. They make great back scratchers for the livestock. The trunk may get to be 3-4" in diameter and up to 15-20' tall having no centralized trunk. They have multiple trunks competing with the others for sun and sustenance. Similar to crepe myrtles. The berries are much juicier and sweeter than the typical hackberry tree variety (Celtis laevigata Willd. var. reticulata) here
in Texas.
I live between San Antonio and Austin.
Thanks for the info. I appreciate. I am heading to TX soon. Appreciate it.
Can you collect seeds and put them up for sale on Etsy or something?? I'd like to grow some.
@@adriennefloreen strange to hear such a request but I guess around here they are so numerous and invasive and near impossible to kill, they grow back very vigorously.
@@WhiteWolfeHU start the next big invasive plant craze man. You can become a folk legend.
Thanks, always interesting to hear new perspectives!
I remember , at least in the italian version of the Odyssey, that Homer called the plant Lotus. And as such, the people who eat it are called lotophages (litterally, lotus-eaters). I always indentified the plant not much as lotus, but more like opium poppy. This is why they forget their homeland. They are high on morphine.
Blue Lotus contains enough opioid chemicals to cause a false positive on a drug test, but also enough to actually get high
That makes sense. The other explanation doesn't
In German, a "Hag" , formaly written "Haag", is a hedge, or a piece of land fenced in by a hedge. Many place names in Germanic-speaking countries have a "Haag" in their name, the best known being Den Haag.
Yes!
Hedgerows were maintained by copicing and pollarding. This practice has all but disappeared, but it was the norm in day gone by.
Yeah, his explanation of the name was suspicious and offensive. It's also an unlikely leap from hack to hag.
Swiss German dialects use the word 'hag' or 'haag' instead of of the Highgerman 'Zaun' or 'Hecke'. It is, as you describe, a feature that encloses a piece of land.
Do you mean German or Dutch?
@@StormBrainZ The first sentence speaks about German. The second about Germanic speaking countries, that includes both Germany and the Netherlands.
They planted these for erosion control in my area, and they ran wild everywhere. I had no idea they were edible.
Well they do indeed naturally enjoy the Riparian areas
Now you get free edible fruit all year round
They are an invasive species. They grow like weeds
@@marktaylor2027 invasive species that is beneficial? Damn I need to be invaded by this tree too!
@@ringring8938 If you plant them, they will grow. I have removed dozens of them with dozens of honeysuckle as well. Nonetheless, if this plant is your jam, they are very low maintenance and drop quite a lot of berries. I just prefer a variety of other local and non local species for various reasons.
This is fascinating. I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where one of the main roads is called Hackberry Lane. I feel so stupid - I never knew hackberries were a real thing. I thought it was just the name of the street. Now, I want to look for hackberry trees. There must be a few around here somewhere. 🤔
You have a nice manner of teaching, sharing . There is so much too learn in the plant kingdom, wow. Anyways thanks.😊
Roads are often named after the trees they cut down to build the highway so there's a few trees you missed out on🥺good luck with your search.
@@phoenixkali This.
They are also often cut down because fruit bearing trees clog up neglected pools/stain neglected sidewalks. Of course, rich property owners make the rules, and they won't eat these berries until a poor person picks it and puts it in 5 layers of plastic packaging.
I had a Hackberry jelly, made from the ground and strained juice of a huge batch of hackberries. It was good. It wasn't overly sweet and we had it with roasted pork
I have 5 or 6 hackberry trees in my yard, and so do my next door neighbors. We love to come together each fall and throw a house party and serve little sweet dishes with hackberries in them and it’s an amazing time.
These trees are very underrated as a foraged plant. There seems to be some flavor differences from tree to tree, but if you get it at the right time the fresh fruit can taste like pureed fig inside of a crunchy shell. And, if you find one tree with a thick shell - see if one is near by with thinner shells. They can vary year to year and tree to tree, as well.
Thanks for the insight John. great points.
Underrated as a foraging plant probably because the fruits are only about the size of BBs. The trees grow very tall so you'd have to wait for a lot of the fruit to fall to get enough to eat. It's good to know they're edible though. I had never heard of or thought of trying to eat them, and there were giant hackberry trees shading my back yard.
@@rhodawatkins4516 in the wild there are a lot of branches near the ground, not just huge pruned trees.
@@rhodawatkins4516 I'm not sure what type of Hackberry or Sugarberry you're referencing, but they do get more substantial than a BB. Just before people use that for comparison purposes.
@@rhodawatkins4516
Copicing and pollarding!!!
Our ancestors maintained woodlots using copicing and pollarding so that harvest was easier.
These days we see huge tall trees and think that this is the way that people back then were using them, but that isn't the case. They were hacking the trees down and maintaining them as large shrubs so that the fruit was lower and much easier to harvest. I have an idea that this may also improve the quality of the fruit since the root to shoot ratio of the tree would be much greater. More roots to feed a smaller amount of top growth probably results in bigger fruit over time and possibly also increases the nutrient density of the fruit as well.
Change the way you picture these tress. If you're thinking about the 60ft tall hackberry and how you are going to harvest the fruit, change your mental picture. Instead think of pruning it back to stubs at 5-10ft every few years. Think of keeping the trees the size of large shrubs. Let is grow out enough to set a good crop of fruit and then cut it back. Have multiple trees on a staggered rotation and you will always have trees ready for harvest.
My grandma used to have this tree in her yard when I was a child. That’s so crazy and amazing. We missed out on it too.
I absolutely love hackberries. One of my favorite foraged fruits. Easy to make into jam
Ok, so Homer wasn't much of a food critic lol. Although, our palettes, I'm sure, are much different now. We've had generations of Halloween candy and milkshakes lol. It was probably amazing for Ole Homer.
Also it's unclear specificly what he was having, since there are a few variants and stuff of these.
It's the Chinese hackberry that makes you forget your Homeland. If you eat the Chinese hackberry you will never want to go home. Great video. American hackberry is good too I've heard.
That might be the case:) I would love to try it.
@@HealthAndHomestead You have to leave your homeland first and taste them elsewhere before you can know if you're forgetting your homeland :)
I don't know about eating Hackberry, but it burns somewhere between say Ash and Oak, almost as hot as bois dè arc (Bodark) , but without the tiny explosions blowing cinders hither and yon.
In and around Pittsburgh, PA everyone calls Bodark fruit "monkey balls" and most people here know Bodark trees as "monkey ball trees"
remember the homer quote is from a time where food was much different from modern times.
Very good point.
I was also thinking that they probably hadn't eaten a meal for two or three days. : )
After watching this and going out to look for some, I found some hackberries on my campus. The shells weren't as hard as I anticipated, but at the same time they weren't gonna break without a fight. They were delicious, thanks for posting this.
I think, perhaps he meant ‘it makes you forget that you miss your homeland’ because it is a taste of home everywhere you journey…
I think he is right about its universality, because they are also eaten in, as far as say India. In Hindi, we call it Kharak and it is mentioned in Ayurveda( traditional Indian medicine) about 3000years ago and is traditionally very helpful for heavy menstruation and ulcers, heartburn as far as I know. It is commonly found in our countryside too, don't know about the type you are talking of but it is green originally( unripe ) and turns black-brown and very sweet.
Cool video! Thank you for muting the chewing noise! It really bothers me too and many creators don't think to do it. Also thank you for taking time to describe what you're sensing, like taste and feel. It really helps to enjoy the videos more since we only have visual and audio!
I remember reading that archaeologists discovered that hackberries made up a significant part of the diets of hunter-gatherers.
makes sense as a relatively common source of protein and fat thats forgeable plus theyre sweet
@@turtlenuggetz7895 and they last, the fruits don’t really drop, the trees will have ripe fruit on them for 4-5 months. Another great wild fruit in Texas is the persimmon, with a soft juicy flesh that tastes like fig jam and cotton candy. Dark purple/black from skin to seed, it has a few large smooth seeds easy to spit out.
@@WhiteWolfeHU Interesting. That doesn't sound like the orange/brown, kinda cinammon-apple-like persimmons I've grown up with. I'll eat em but not really a fan.
They must have ground the hard seeds, then separated the tiny hulls from the inner edible part.
Super happy to find this video. Thanks for the very well done presentation. No fluff just good info.
They are all over the central US for sure. They make excellent firewood too. I've noticed my dogs love the leaves. If you ever twist and tear a leaf up it actually smells really good.
Wow this is so friggin cool i had no idea these existed, foraging is a fascinating thing because it makes u realize that nature is providing all kinds of nourishment and remedies and it has so much abundance of these kinds of things that can be found literally in your backyard, its quite a mind blowing thought
Other Native uses for these that I heard of was using the crushed hackberries as a marinade on meat, or as a flavoring on parched corn (corn nuts). You could probably do the same for popcorn, too, though I only specifically heard about the parched corn.
If Homer was that impressed with hackberry he'd have really been blown away by mulberry
Mulberry wasnt unknown to him, its a regional tree there. Best
Elms get raised bark like that too, but, it would be criss crossed and orange highlights deep in the groves.
This is big news! That’s the first time I’ve heard Homer be enthousiastic about anything but donuts.
😅
...AND DUFF BEER.
😂
Even many of our modern fruits like apples and various berries have been artificially bred to increase their sweetness. So sweet tastes were much rarer back then. This was also before the time of processed sugars
Processed sugars have existed in India for thousands of years.
@@ferretyluv They have existed most places for thousands of years. But they were not produced or consumed to the same extent that they are today
@@LS-xs7sg Not in most places, no. Sugarcane is native to South and Southeast Asia. So processed sugar has only existed there for thousands of years. Before colonialism, sugarcane was a specialty of India. Europeans started planting it in the Caribbean because of the similar equatorial climate. THAT’s when it started spreading around the world, but even then, it was limited. It was only with the introduction of the sugar beet in the late 19th century did candy become available and cheap enough for the masses.
I have hackberry trees all around me. 😂They are common to the point of pest in the Appalachian mountains of TN.
Maybe you can forage them and sell them to people who don't live near them?? Just a thought. 🙂
@@AndreaMartinez-rj2iw they grow easily enough here I have to pull sprouts out of the gutter when I clean it for the year. And my garden, and the gravel of my driveway. I suppose I could sell the seeds. Not a good enough gardener to grow and sell the saplings.
Good firewood, not good fruit.
I can only imagine what it would have been like to experience something like this back then. Straight mind blowing
That's why the first thing I would do if I traveled back to the stone age was feed some cavemen a chocolate bar and see their reaction
@@TheTrashCan335 give them a lemon slice
@@tewigaming2537 If you do that they'll bash your head open as an apology
Imagine trying Doritos given by a random time traveler
@@PseudoDemonic Imagine someone teleporting behind you and ask you to try his "Yellow colored drink"
Thank You, first time here. Great clear concise introduction with real content. Will be watching for more. 👍
The camera and montage are amazing! Great video and content!
I've tried hackberry and I thought it was delicious (for a wild edible). It tasted like apricot to me.
I imagine that some cooks who like to experiment might come up with some recipes that require the berries separated into fruit and nuts. The nuts might mix well into a granola mixture while the flesh can be used as a sweetener for other things from pastry to pudding.
Great description on the texture after smashing that's how I describe things as well sometimes you got to be oddly specific but it paints the perfect picture
thank u for editing out eating sounds really love that.
celtis laevigata is native only to northern america. Homer could only have encountered Celtis tournefortii.
Interesting and informative video! I've never tasted them although Hackberry trees are scattered throughout the forested areas of our farm and grow very large. Many species of wildlife feed on the berries when they ripen in the fall. During fall migration, robins will swarm in by the hundreds to our woods and pick the berries off the trees or from the ground. The bird baths in our yard have large deposits of hackberry and gray dogwood seeds every morning when we re-fill them. We have to nip the sprouts every summer that pop up in our yard. I have read that Native Americans also used the berries to make pemmican. Thanks for teaching me about something that has been right in front of my nose for all these years and never paid attention to it. I might try some next fall if I can beat the robins to them.
I don’t know how I got to this video, but I liked it and you seem like a really decent guy so I subscribed and liked the video! Keep making great videos about things you love!
Your production value is off the charts!
They are all over central Texas, seems like the birds love them and love spreading them. I just snacked on some earlier. The taste is of date, no nut flavor, the shell is very crunchy but thin and breaks easy. (Think egg shell the size of a pillbug) Its no stranger than eating pumpkin seeds whole.
I knew they were edible but I didn't know they were yummy. I love hackberry trees. I love their paper leaves and their pokey bark.
Really good, down to earth video. Thank you for sharing the experience.
Love your videos. They are very helpful!
Very good! Thank you. I’ve been trying to find all that can be foraged in my little 100 acre wood. I always considered hackberry to be a trash tree. Especially after a huge one fell across my house a few decades ago. Now I see them in a different way. Anything edible that I don’t have to cultivate is now of great value to me. I will see how many I can spot on my morning walk around the lake tomorrow and, perhaps, do a walk about over the property the next few weekends to see how many I can locate. There ought to be close to 30 or so considering how common they are here.
Best way to prepare is to know what you got that you can use!
In my ever so humble opinion!
That is a blessing to have them on your property. I don’t have any by my land that I have seen.
@@HealthAndHomestead I am a very Blessed man! God is good to me! To Him be the glory.
one thing i missed: how & when to harvest? -it's a pretty tall tree, so : is this just gathering ground fallen ones? what season? anything to watch for when picking/gathering?
__
what other ways to store or process them?
-puree? (vitamix?)
They stay on the tree until fall, then mostly fall off with the leaves, where you can still gather them. They don't occur in great quantities on each branch, but are sparsely scattered on the branch ends. They do come off easily. If you get them while the drupes are still on a green tree, perhaps the nuts inside are meatier. I haven't tried yet.
Hey, Greek here. C australis (not hackberry) is probably mentioned by Dioskouros. But the fruit from Homer you're talking about is the lotus (either the date plum or a type of jujube), not that one.
Thank you for sharing. I had never heard of the hackberry tree before.
I wondered how could Homer write about it, when the tree comes from North America? A: I found that these are Celtis Australis and/or Celtis Caucasica. Now I wonder about the difference in taste of the three.
You are supposed to grind them to a paste in a food processor and scrape the paste into the kitchen trash can.
Go eat McDonald's again for the third time today
@@nedstarkravingmad1799 😂
Thanks for turning down the eating noises, really appreciate it!
🤣🤣
I've never tried one before. I'll definitely have to go wandering around locally to see if I can find some. Thank you for sharing!
I'll have to try this, Celtics grows on my forest acre.
Persimmons are ripe here now also.
I also have 2 species of passion flower, American plum, mulberry and Eastern prickly pear cactus.
Aha another central Texas viewer?? All of those are awesome, sometimes hard to believe how many different things growing wild around the woods are edible. Acorns and pecans, muscadine grape, Turks Cap mallow, dewberry, agarita, and many green weeds, yuckka, aloe Vera, cattails, the list goes on.
Have to wait till after second frost to eat persimmons, if the deer leave any
Actually Alexander is in eastern Tennessee. And I think both opossums and raccoons climb persimmon trees to beat out the deer. Also I've seen lots of wild turkey in persimmon trees.
Paw paws grow around here also.
Lots of Shagbark hickory trees here, nuts taste just like pecans which are also genus Carya.
@@alexander.Rainforest1987 I run the Obion river valley in West Tennessee.
Ive been cutting trees for 14yrs and hackberry is one of the nastier smelling most rotted trees ive ever worked with. Never thought the berries would be good at all
😂
I find it to be a very serviceable firewood if burned within 2 years of curing. Certainly plentiful here in south-central Kansas. In fact, a bit of a nuisance, like the Siberian elm. Prolific like a weed!
@@rinseyvessel6523 I don't know anything about firewood. What happens after 2yrs?
How does it compare with cottonwood?
Thanks for the info about the hackberry tree. I have a pool cue made of spalted hackberry. It’s a beautiful wood, but I had never heard of it and knew nothing about it.
i went to the local market and they had a hackberry, ofcourse bought one and will plant it soon. I told my neighbour who also was there: 'some old philosopher said these were great, i saw it on a video'. The neighbour also has hackberrys at home and was curious, so after checking the video a 2nd time i can actually tell him that Homer said it might make a make a man forget about his homeland.
Informative, funny and qualitative content. Thanks for contributing to society with your vids, I now have a connection with these trees that I did not have
My parents had these along the tree line in their yard while I was growing up and I never knew they were edible. I lived in downtown Chicago for several years and only recently learned these were edible. I would walk to my local park in Chicago and snack on them when they were in season.
A tree to look for when purchasing a property
Thank you for sharing this information with us all
This was very interesting. Thank you.
Awesome video, especially the historical tidbits. I vaguely recall that a tea could be made from the hackberries. I think I'd crush in the mortar/pestle, brew, and then push through a chinois. Teas seem very, very underrated as a food/medicine. Still, I want to try this roasted recipe. Thanks.
Maybe a Hackberry bread would be good too.
Same with hickory: they grow all over the South, at least, and are mostly shell but very little meat. Pecans are the exception, being a hickory with a meaty nut.
You CAN shell hickory nuts, but the ones we had on the farm ("pignuts,") were thick shelled and disappointing.
And our hackberries were seeds with skin. I never tried to eat one.
Shagbark hickery (sic) has more meat in their nuts.
Very interesting and informative video!
You have redeemed the hackberry tree. Now I know of 2 items of usefulness, shade and edible berries. Thank you
Funny, when I have seen these, I thought those were some sort of bug casing. I will try them now, although from everything I learned on here, I will not be chewing them with my cracked teeth, one year I broke one off with a peanut M&M, and that didn't turn out well. I also want to tell you to please put some sort of fireproof backing surrounding that fireplace/woodstove. I learned that everything can be fine, and then, with each burning, the backing slowly changes chemical composition and becomes easier and easier to start on fire. Thank you for all the information, and thank you everyone that commented!
Manzanita berries are really good too. They start out sour, but quickly turn sweet, then the berries dry inside, into a sweet and tangy powder. They can be eaten at any time, and they're actually the best when the insides are powdery and that's when they can be stored all winter, as long as they stay dry.
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Yes! Although the insides are dry and powdery, with small black seeds, the powder is both sweet and tart, like Pixie Sticks if anyone remembers those. Like all wild plants flavor varies based on location, growing conditions, and varieties. I had some in N California that tasted exactly like Jolly Rancher watermelon candy! Indigenous people in the region used to grind them up, put them in a basketry sieve and strain cold water through them to make a delicious cider. I've tried that and it's delicious.
@@kenmorris2290
Yeah! The Native Americans in that area also mixed the powder into pemican (a mix of dried fish or venison jerky, nuts, seeds, and dried berries, that served as travel food and winter rations. Like trail mix.
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That's awesome! Thank you for your knowledge sir.
Great video! I enjoyed it so much so that my inner forager warms to run outside and find a Hackberry tree, but alas, it's nearly 7p.m. and dark. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
WOW! As a vegan horticulturist in Quebec, I'll be looking for this tree to make me some burgers!.. at ~14.7% protein, 18% carbs and good dose of fats, this is a super food. I also imagine that when pounding them, they would actually take the time to pound it into a smoother paste, which is what I would do. Not to mention throwing in some chili pepper:)
👀🧐🤔 sounds tempting....
i hate vegans
@@silence-humility-calmness good for you and your 'critical thinking'
I wonder what the amino acid profile is like? How much of a complete protein or not, etc?
@@justinw1765 Good question but i'd throw some Braggs or Hemp seed/hearts in there just to be sure.
Thank you for turning sown the noise when you eat! I am one of those that can not stand that noise. :)
Thank you for the knowledge In the video.
There's literally one right next to my house, and I never knew the berries are edible 😂
Back in the day when kids were allowed to roam the woods and fields, we would entirely eat all kinds of goodies nature provided. Like persimmons, crabapple, Hackberry, blackberries, honeysuckle etc.. then drink from the creeks! I hope it's still that way somewhere!!
in the rural midwest it's still like that, helps there's next to no cell reception in some places.
A lot of kids are like that in red states.
@@maclura you don’t even need a lack of cell reception, you just need an engaging enough community and environment. I had plenty of cell reception in Arizona, and I still went out a ton just because I liked the scenery
@@wolfetteplays8894 ya but the lack of a connection really helps, social media is too addictive. in small towns with cell service i still see people out sure, but they're standing around like zombies on their phones while out.
Hackberry make decent firewood, too. Splits real easy.
Thanks for the video, the info and your time.
You are welcome.
If you get a chocolate chip cookie recipe and replace the chocolate chips with these berries it would probably be very tasty double the vanilla
Until I saw it in Your fingers, the Hackberries seemed to me big like Walnuts. I'm curious if I can find them in Switzerland and of course about their taste. In regard of the variety of tastes and flavours after Marco Polo and Cristobal Colon it's hard to imagine eating in the past could have been much more than to intake energy, like a car needs gas.
I grew up in n central Texas surrounded by weed trees==Hackberries. It's great to have more understanding of these trees.
This randomly popped in my recommended and this seems like the closest contender for that fruit ive been wondering about
Wild is too random, we have an assortment of wild Mullberry trees on our property that we mix together to make wine and vinegar but I bought a tree at a nursery one year and it makes big juicy berries. Much better for eating. They can be pricey but you know what you are getting if the nursery has a good reputation.
YES, THE WORD "WILD" IS RANDOM. TAKE BANANAS, THEY NO LONGER PRODUCE VIABLE SEEDS BEFORE MAN SELECTIVELY HYBREDZIED THEM.
I'm from SE Iowa also. I tried these several years ago after watching a young coon in a tree eating them.i spat out the seeds , but I guess that's where the fat contant is. Anyway, they were sweet. , but I thought they left a strange aftertaste. Will definitely revisit these
So in Texas they start getting ripe at end of summer but really when they are fully ripe like in November and the red berries turn a dark dull red, they will be sweetest, and the seed will have turned from hard to slightly less hard and more thin and crunchy.
I tried them too early then because the leaves were still on
Just went out in the yard and picked some up these trees get very big and beautiful in the summer the squirells love the berries
Sally4th's comment about Homer having a different, European species of hack berry needs to be pinned ASAP!!!
Strange I was always told that hackberries were poisonous!
See 2:10 for what happens to those consuming them. ;-)
Me too.
@@Mrbfgray 😂
I wonder what would happen if you fermented them like coffee beans.
GOOD IDEA! A KIND OF COFFEE! SOUNDS GOOD.
Great video. I liked and subbed. There really aren't enough high quality TY channels that explore edible plants. Thanks!
I am sure these don't taste as good as mushroom risotto, or whatever's your fancy, but something that grows on trees, that is high in fiber, fat & calories AND protein must have been an absolute godsend to those that had access to it.
Based on this, I think the Hackberry had to be the most important drupe/fruit/nut in the ancient world until the pea gained widespread use, but this is just a guess.
Thank you for turning the noise down
I’ve never heard of Hackberries before here in Europe. And Wikipedia said it’s only found in central to east America 🤨
And it got cultivated in Aussie land.
So there must be either a mixup on any side, or these WERE to be found in Europe but aren’t anymore. So sad, I’d like to try them really bad!
you were probably looking at a american species, the genus celtis can be found in europe too
@@axolotlhappy2340 I wonder what the european species in question would be
@@ramon10107 The European species is Celtis australis
No one knows for sure what the Lotus fruit of Homer's Odyssey really was/
"Lotus" in Greek describes many fruits, like literally any sweet fruit like dates and plums.
The mythical "lotophagoi" were probably in North Africa as Odysseus was off track from Greece for 10 days due to strong North winds.
I'm heartbroken. Back in my childhood town in Louisiana, we had two sugar types in our backyard. My father called them 'trash trees', but now i know better,
Keep in mind he said that during a time before sugar. It also really helps a story for people that never left the towns they were born in lol.
there was honey and other fruits ,i would say starvation was involved , starvation adds tremendous amounts of flavor