Persimmons, Wild Seaweed, and Dog Button Patties

Walking down Sandpiper Street this time of year, you can see every beautiful tree Virginia ever had to offer. I love the bright yellow of the hickory.

I like finding a tan sculpted hickory nut to hold in my hand as I walk. Another color I treasure is the burnt orange/pink of the small wild persimmon.

Nothing tells me it is time for Thanksgiving like these wild offerings. Though I love stuffing and pumpkin pie, I treasure the way the texture and heft of hickory nuts and persimmonsbring to mind the early hunter-gatherers here on the same land.

I come from a long line of the same. Take ground cherries, for instance.

My mother would gather and accumulate them as they grew wild in her garden, and then one day make a delicious golden-green pie oozing sugary juices. She also gathered the gray-green lamb’s quarter when it was young and cooked it up to serve with vinegar, hard boiled egg, and bacon, just as she did spinach.

And then there were dog buttons. When my mother was a little girl, she and her sister used to gather tiny seed pods off a certain weed and chew them—I wish I knew what it was now.When she was in her seventies, she was tickled to find the same weed growing in her garden. Just for the fun of it, she gathered some and made a treat she called “dog button patties.”  I can’t really say how they tasted!

I do, however, love to throw good wild things into my own cooking; I’ve cooked young pokeweed with garlic and olive oil, just like spinach. I’ve thrown radish flowers and violets on top of my salads.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a new generation of Yoder lineage is taking this custom and running with it. Here is a lovely salad topped with flowers flaunted by MalaikaSarco-Thomas and her mom –my sister–Anita Yoder.

I must say, though, my niece takes this hunter/gathering business one step farther than any of the rest of the family. Here she is at the seaside, foraging for wild seaweed at Kynance Cove in Cornwall.

I have no doubt that something very tasty will come of this effort, though it’s hard to imagine just what! Still, it’s good to see a Virginia Tidewater heritage alive and well today in southwestern England.