Show 255: Locust

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey'll welcome this week's show. Today we're going to talk
about one of the most common trees or shrubs. It
depends on the variety that grow in my area. It's
the locust tree. Now that's the rabina family, and there's

(01:53):
some how would I put it? There is some controversy
over with over with though the black locust is really
even in the same family as the honey locust, they
have very different qualities. Your black locust is a luguminous plant.

(02:18):
Is that right? Wait a minute, black locust laguminous and
honey locus is not. I think that's right. One of
them does seem to have those nitrogen fixing properties, whereas
the other one doesn't. They're probably fairly related, even if,
though more than likely taxonomists are going to make a differentiation.

(02:39):
The honey locus is a much larger tree. For one thing,
it's the wood is a different quality. The seed pods
have an edible pulp which is actually very sweet. You
can use it as basically a molasses or syrup substitute.
You can make beer out of it. It's really good.

(03:00):
Your black locust is also a very thorny tree generally
does not get much taller than say a dogwood. Now
I have seen a few that are a bit bigger,
but it's not like a big old honey locust. Both
are very thorny. The black locust seed pods are not animal.

(03:22):
So there's six varies of locusts that have been found
useful in herbal medicine, and I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
They're like.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Maybe a dozen shrub type locusts and a couple of
trees in my region. And the honey locust has been naturalized,
so we'll start with. Interestingly, Resources of the Southern Fields
and Forests described yellow locust as a false acacia. Now

(03:52):
the honey locust, if I'm not mistaken, is actually closely
related to the acacia well anyway, they describe it growing
in North Carolina and South Carolina from Charleston up to
the mountains basically and said the bark of the root
is tonic, good for the stomach in other words, good

(04:13):
for digestion and enlarge doses ematic and purgative, so make
you throw up and have diarrhea essentially. At the flowers
are aromatic and emollient, meaning softening, an anti spasmodic syrup
is prepared for them. A doctor was quoted gendron I

(04:33):
Guess said, when given to infants, that produced sleep, but
also vomiting and sometimes like convulsions. So that's probably not
a good idea whatsoever. There were three cases of poisoning
in children from eating the root, but they all recovered,

(04:57):
and apparently because of that narcotic effe, kids used to
like to play around with it a little bit. But
probably not a very good idea. Now. King's American Dispensatory
says of locusts in general, and they don't really get
into the specific They said chemical composition. From the root

(05:19):
of this plant, you can isolate the compound of sparragan,
which is also an asparagus. The flowers contain a yellow
crystallites glucoside called robinin rabina that's where he gets the
name from, some quercetin, and a nonfermidable sugar. The bark

(05:40):
of the locustrey, when chewed, produces a violent a meadow
catharsis so again throwing up in diarrhea. Authors searching for
the poisonous principle found it in the albumous body, which
is tasteless soluble in water and insoluble in alcohol coagulated
by heat. Let's see what medicinal uses it has. A

(06:03):
decoction of the root bark is tonic in small doses,
but a medican perrogative and large ones. An ounce of
the bark boiled in three gills of water a gil.
I can't remember these zactmeasurement. I think it's about a
little more than a cup or a little less than
a cup. But anyway, we're making a decoction, okay, where

(06:23):
you take the water two parts to one, boil it
down till the water is reduced by half, and it
says the water operates. The decoction operates in cathartic as
a dose of a half ounce the bark is supposed
to possess some acro narcotic properties. The juice has been
known to produce coma and it's like convulsion. An overdose

(06:45):
has produced symptoms very close similar to those resulting from
an impopper dose of belladonna, and at the same time
cured a case of fever and agu So there's a
trade off for you. You might have a coma, you'll
probably be knocked out and hallucinating, but it may help
with your fever. I think can maybe stay away from that.

(07:08):
The yellow locust seems to be the one they're really
talking about. The flowers possess anti spasmodic properties and form
an excellent and agreeable syrup. And yes, in all the
locusts we use the flowers, we use them as edible
wild plants, and medicinally, the flowers possess anti spasmodic properties
and form an excellent, agreeable syrup. Syrup in the South

(07:29):
we say syrup that just slipped in. Sorry. The leaves
and doses of thirty grains every twenty minute at twenty
minutes operate mildly and efficiently. As an emetic, the drug
should be tested for its effect on the gastroine, textinal,
and nervous affections. Now, I am not aware that really
any medicinal studies have ever scientific studies on locusts have

(07:51):
really ever been performed medicinally. Plants for a future says
of black locust it is febrifuge. It means with a fever.
The flowers are anti spasmodic, aromatic, diarrheic, diuretic, not diarrheic,
but like the bark, could be We'll go with diuretic, emollient,
and laxative. They are cooked and eaten for the treatment

(08:14):
of eye elments. I've never heard of eating them for
eye elments. I have heard of making a using them
as a poltish or a wash. That's pretty common. But yeah,
that's interesting. The flower is said to contain the antique
tumor compound. I'm not even to try to pronounce this
one now. I'm not gonna try. The inner bark and

(08:35):
root bark are emetic, purgative, a tonic. The root bark
has been chewed to induce vomiting or held in the
mouth to allay toothache, though it is rarely, if ever,
prescribed as a therapeutic agent in Britain. The fruit is narcotic.
So black locus, yellow locus, don't eat the sea pods, okay,

(08:56):
probably gonna get real sick and maybe die. Honey locus
is a totally different plant. The leaves are a colagog
and emetic, and the leaf juice inhibits viruses, so the
juice of the leaves is of anti viral properties. Peterson
Field guides to Eastern Central medicinal plants States. American Indians

(09:17):
chewed the root bark to induce vomiting, held the root
bark in the mouth to allay toothaches. Used as a folktonic,
purgative animetic flower tea used in rheumatism. In China, the
root bark is also considered purgative animetic. The flowers are
considered diuretic. Flowers contain a glycoside called robinin which where

(09:41):
we get rabina from or vice versa, which is experimentally diuretic. Warning,
all parts are toxic, and even honey derived from the
flowers can is said to be toxic. The strong odor
of the flowers has been reported to cause nausea and
headaches in some persons. And yeah, the locusts are in bloom.

(10:02):
It is a very strong scent and it can be
maybe a bit nauseating. When I lived in a town
called Fosco, a little unincorporated community in the mountains of
North Carolina, we had I don't even know a few
dozen black locusts in the backyard. And that's when I
learned about making fritters of the flowers and such. In fact,

(10:25):
I have an entry on this in my Spring Foraging cookbook.
I think i'll pull that up real quick. Yeah, I
might as well tie that in sin it's more of
the same subject. But anyway, this one I learned about
locus really because they have big old thorns on them,
big heavy thorns really tear you up. And of course

(10:45):
I used to mow the lawn, you know, cut the
grass all around them in tight with the lawnmower, and
I would just get scratched up like crazy. But yeah,
the scent, if you're allergic to it, could definitely cause
a headache, could definitely cause hay fever. But yeah, it

(11:06):
is known for making people a little nauseous sometimes, you know,
if you're not used to it. So all right, let's
see pulling up the Spring Forage and Cookbook here. Let
me go down to the entry on locust. Now, the
first entry for the first part of the show we
did was on h well, that's hot. I don't have

(11:32):
locust in the Spring Forage and Cookbook. Yeah, wait a minute,
I'm sure I do. It's got to be I must
be looking at under the wrong title. Maybe it's under
there it is black locust. You know, I write a
book and I forget totally what I've written. People come
back to me and say, you know, in this book.

(11:53):
Let me ask you. I'm like, wow, did I write that?
I don't remember that? And then I go pull it
up and like, oh, yeah, I did write that, and
then everything comes back to me and I can answer
their question. But anyway, where was I So I was
saying how the locusts can make you a little dizzy,
It can make you a little nauges, can really scratch
you up. Now, honey from black locust trees is actually

(12:15):
pretty good. Apparently there are some locusts, probably the yellow
locusts we were talking about that you know, can be
an issue. But the bees around where we lived would
harvest from wildflowers, including the black locust flower. Never bothered
me a bit at all. But anyway, so black locust

(12:38):
flowers just breaded and fried have been a favorite in Appalachians.
In the Applachians for generations. I mean, folks made black
locust flower fritters, mixing them into a little pancake or
cornbread type of batter and just deep fried it and
ate it. I mean that was like a traditional spring meal.

(13:01):
Really good. In fact, especially breakfast with a little bacon
on the side, a little sausage. Really nice. Really, I
think the flowers are probably the least toxic part of
the tree, but you know, you would want to be
careful and if you do have an allergy, maybe not
try eating the flowers. So a black locusts, as I mentioned,

(13:23):
is luguminous, that's the one that's luguminous. Honeylocus apparently is not.
Some sources say it is, others say it's not. You know,
Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture, was real big on
planting honey locus to reforest the landscape, believing that it
was a luguminous tree. More recently permaculture and arborus and

(13:47):
you know, foresters have said it's not. I don't know.
The only way you could really find out. I mean,
it has seed pods like a bean, so you would
think it would be luguminous. But the only way you'd
really find out would be to use a microscope and
go into the soil and see if that bacterial and
fungal relationship is present on the little root hairs. And

(14:12):
if it is, then you know it's a luguminous plant.
If it's not, it's not. And I'm not into soil microbiology,
that's just not my thing. I have friends that are
professional permaculture teachers and writers who have big old microscopes
and get into that big time. Old buddy Matt Powers

(14:32):
is so into soil microbiology, and I can see why
he is. It's fascinating. I mean everything. When you look
at the stuff under a microscope, it's absolutely beautiful. I mean,
it looks like a kaleidoscope. But that's not me. I'm
more of a macro guy than a micro guy on

(14:52):
pretty much every level. I'm not terribly into the details.
I don't get into chemistical formulas and all kinds of
stuff like that. That's why I'm more of a folk
herbalist than really a clinical herbalist. It's just I'm a
big picture guy. I'm just get it done, take care
of it, do it. I'm not I'm not really up

(15:15):
for the minutia, you know. I don't know. Some people are,
some people aren't. I think it's more maybe a left
brain right brain thing. Maybe it's I don't know. I
think a lot of larger framed men like myself. I mean,
I'm six four, my leaness. I'm usually run around, you know,

(15:38):
two hundred to two of five or so. When I've
got a lot of muscle on me. I'm more like
two ten two forty. I'm a pretty big guy usually.
You know, blew out a knee a couple of years ago,
and I haven't carried as much weight since because I
haven't been able to work out as hard. But I'm
pretty You know, a large frame man. You think of

(15:59):
Donald Trump, I mean he's a big guy. You think
of I mean so many people. You can think what
comes to mind when you think of a big man, right,
And I don't mean fat, I mean large, skeletal frame,
muscular like my grandfather, big picture of people. They got
a goal, they got a vision, They're going to get

(16:19):
it done. They're not into the little stuff, the minutia,
the details, and so sometimes we make mistakes, we go
out a little, we get over our skis, as they say.
I've known many, many men like that, especially working in
politics or meeting you know, growing up in a resort
town in the mountains of North Carolina, you meet just tons

(16:41):
of millionaires, millionaires on a daily basis, sometimes billionaires very
often large, loud, you know, aggressive, high testosterone men. You
also meet their attorneys and they're elements and their secretaries

(17:01):
and they're you know, and they tend to be smaller framed,
more detail oriented. I don't know if it's a it's
what we be call in erbalism constitutions. You know, when
we look at herbal energetics, people that tend to be
more bold, robust, larger frame tend to react differently with

(17:23):
herbs and have different ailments than people that tend to
be more cool tempered, meticulous, detail oriented, smaller framed. It's genetics.
I mean, you know, what are you gonna do? It's
I think our society makes a huge mistake in treating

(17:44):
everyone or making the assumption that everyone is equal in
terms of outcome or ability or where they start out
in life. I mean, can we start out with this
precept of all men are created equal? What we mean
is all men are equal under the eyes of God
and under the law. We don't mean that each person

(18:05):
has an equal ability in every field, but especially over
the last fifty years or so, the people are society
at large, our culture, I guess, has decided that that
is what the assumption means. But in your life, if

(18:29):
you're going to be honest, you know, some people are
smarter than others, some people are stronger than others. Some
people can run faster than others. Some people are more
charismatic than others. Some people are more attractive than others.
Some people come from wealth, some people come from poverty.
Some people have better overall health. Some people are prone

(18:50):
to sickness and disease. Some people are good with numbers.
Some people are good with words. You know, some people
are good with computer programming and summer painters. I mean,
some are meant to be soldiers and some are meant
to be accountants. That's just the way it is. We

(19:10):
have a great diversity of personality types, body types, and talents.
But we're supposed to assume that all people are equally
qualified for whatever job. We're supposed to assume that all
people are equally capable in every field, regardless genetics, regardless education,

(19:33):
regardless background, regardless physical strength, mental ability. And then we're
supposed to say, well, the only difference between these two
people is their race or their gender. And that's just insanity.
That's just insanity. Very few people in this world could

(19:54):
do my job. What is my job? My job is
to have I studied herbal medicine for over thirty years
and essentially memorized hundreds of books. I got all those
details in my head. So as an herbal educator, I
can tell you this herb has been historically used for

(20:16):
this purpose. Very few people can play guitar like I do.
I've been playing guitar for again, like thirty years, and
I got a chance to study with different people. It
would be insanity for someone to say, Okay, so Bob
Smith over here, who doesn't have my background an informal education,

(20:38):
we could have the same college degree, right, We could
have the same high school diploma. We could come from
the same neighborhood and have the same color skin. He
hasn't shared my experience. He can't do my job well.
I mean, it's equally insane to think that I could
go play basketball like Michael Jordan physically, or Lebron James

(21:01):
or anybody, or pick a white guy Larry Bird right. Physically,
we're built differently. They run faster than I do. I've
never been a fast runner. We may be about the
same height, but they spent their lives time as playing basketball.
You can't take the two of us and say we're
equally good at basketball, or we're equally good at herbal medicine.

(21:23):
So why would we be equally qualified to be anything
from a congressman to nurse. No, everybody's individualists, sick and different,
and everybody has their own talents. And you know, when
you try to just say everybody is the same and

(21:44):
they're only differentiated by race or economic background, that's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak, the
man was absolutely huge. Lufarigno, go. You know, if you
could go back in time and take a tape measure
and measure their wrists and ankles, you would say see

(22:05):
that they are much thicker than those of the average man,
even of the same height and weight. Well maybe not weight.
I mean you could be really fat and have thick ankles.
But I mean, because they say the same height, at
the same age, they had a larger, larger bones and
larger musculature from birth. You could take a guy with

(22:28):
a smaller frame, smaller bones. The two could even get
to be the same strength. You know that strength. They
are often weightlifters that are very very strong because well
various factors, but they're not as large in their musculature.

(22:50):
LuFe Igno and Arnold Schwarzenegger, we're always going to be
bigger men. There was no way for anyone else, even
lifting the same amount of weight on the same diet,
even to the same routine, to be mister Universe, you know,
like La Schwarzenegger was, or the Incredible Hulk, like Forerigno was.

(23:11):
You know Bruce Lee, Yeah, he trained like crazy. Uh
probably trained to the point that he killed himself. He
was fastly, insanely fast. His reflexes were mind blowing. You
could take someone of a different set of genetics and
put them through the same training program and he was

(23:32):
still going to kick that guy's butt. I mean Bruce Lee, Yeah, yeah,
And I mean just and not heavily muscled, you know,
very muscular, but not big muscles like you know, Ferigno
or somebody. And what's true physically is also true mentally.
We all have excuse me, we all have our own

(23:54):
mental capacity. We have our well, there's a certain amount
of knowledge that's just going to stick in our heads
or and there's a certain level of logic that we're
going to be able to do, and that's really decided
before birth. I mean, that is our genetic makeup, and
you can expand it to some point, but one person's

(24:16):
going to come into the world with the capacity to
reach a level of say one hundred and fifty IQ.
Another person's going to come into the world with the
capacity to only hit about ninety. And you can put
them through the same classes with the same teachers, and
the one that has that genetic capacity to hit one
fifty is always going to be smarter, mentally, more fast,

(24:40):
able to solve puzzles, able to do things more accurately,
to retain more information than the other. And you know,
some people come into the world more attractive than others.
This whole idea of equality of outcome is insane. A
quality of equal treatment under the law, meaning we don't

(25:05):
show favoritism, is the foundation. That's what all men are created.
Equal means equality in the eyes of God. All men
and women can become saints or be the worst sinners.
That's what our founding document means. It doesn't mean that
everyone should make the same amount of money. It doesn't

(25:26):
mean that two people that have the same jobs should
be paid the same amount if one of them is
better at the job than the other. It doesn't mean
anything beyond that, and it certainly doesn't mean equality of
outcome trust me. Put me in I don't even know

(25:46):
Olympic race running track with what was his name, same
Bold or whatever, I can't remember. I don't watch the Olympics.
I hate the Olympics actually, But put me on the
track with him, he's gonna blow me away. People just
left in the dust. And he's born with the genetic
makeup to be able to run that fast, and then

(26:07):
he applied himself to it and trained hard. I'm born
with the genetic makeup of not being able to run
fast at all. I would much sooner fight than run,
even if I know I'm gonna lose, because but the
alternative is somebody's chasing me, is I'm going to get
out of breath, worn out, and then they're gonna beat
the crap out of me. I'm built to stand my

(26:29):
ground and fight. I'm not built to run very much
to that effect. I'm actually very good at fighting, and
I'm actually very strong and you know, pretty tough. I
can take a punch pretty well. Other people are born
to run, not to quote Springsteen intentionally, but you know,

(26:50):
it's just our makeup. They're also some people are born
to scream and ask for help. You know, that's true
as well, and comes down to genetics. But equality of
outcome is just really stupid. Actually, it's illogical, it's irrational,
and it's impossible anyway. So black locust has somewhat of

(27:17):
a perfume flower, the scent sweet, and it has hints
of vanilla, and maybe gardena did that. That's that. Some
people find that sweet scent kind of nauseating, but if
you like it, and I do, even you know I do.
Actually some folks enjoy making a syrup of the blossoms
and using that syrup with vanilla ice cream because it

(27:40):
does have sort of a floral vanilla scent to it.
But you know, overall, my taste and run more to
the savory than to the sweet, and cooked in wone
with oil and salt, not battered and fried. You know,
I'll usually mix in a few savory herbs and just
fry them up and am as a side dish as
much as I would. The related red bud blossoms not

(28:03):
bad at all, but they're much better if you include
some wild onion and Charlotte sharp shalat and chives in
my opinion, because I do like the savory and you
get the kind of aromatic combined with the bitter combined
with savory, that's pretty good. Herbs to Provence is really
a classic French combination of Mediterranean herbs a ragno, rosemary, etc.

(28:27):
That often includes lavender flowers as an aromatic bitter. I
am allergic to lavender, so I'll make sort of a
similar combination with black locus blossoms really good, specifically good
with pork. In fact, anything fatty but pork and chicken
really good. With that combination of herbs or provence, you

(28:51):
can cook it together with fresh garden peas or green beans. Again,
you're combining lagoons, and the flavors really complement each other.
Add a little garlic splash, lemon juice, and I mean
just as a side dish. Really, I've never been a
big fan of trout almond dean. I like trout, but

(29:11):
it's so mild. I mean, trout's gonna taste like what
you cook it with. So once I realized I could
bread and fry trout with, you know, in butter and
olive oil, and then add this like black locust blossom,
herbed provence and some chopped nuts. I don't really have

(29:32):
almonds growing where I live but I do have black
walnuts and hickory nuts. Really good pecans or pecans, however
you want to say them, wild onions, ramps, a little
dash of white wine or some driver mooth, which is
even better. Fry it up, get a nice and crispy
you bread it, take it off, cook up your veggies

(29:54):
and nuts in the pan, take them out, put it
over the fish. Add some more butter, cream together what's
left in the pan, and just serve it right over.
Salt and pepper to taste. Mushrooms absolutely salted mushrooms and
a few capers are really nice. Give that little sourness

(30:14):
to balance out the butter. Or pickled dandelions or asturchia blossoms.
I've told you how to make capers out of dandelion
and asturtion blossoms. Fantastic, Just salt and pepper to taste.
You can add pscythia blossoms to that as well. Red
bud blossoms do that quite a bit. The forcythia I

(30:36):
would substitute for probably the locust blossoms. Get that slight bitterness.
Red blood bud tastes like sweet green peas, so that
just kind of gives you a little more sweetness to it,
you know, just serve with a good glass of white
wines some crusty bread to soak up all the butter
and the wine and herb sauce, and yeah, that's really good.

(30:59):
Of course, you can just same thing with chicken breasts
or small game birds, quail, squab, or dove. What is squab?
Squab is pigeon. That's just pigeons we eat. What's the
difference between the pigeon you eat and the pigeons sitting
on your power line or up on the roof. Nothing
except squab is usually farm raised. You can absolutely eat

(31:20):
the pigeons that are around. This is a bit, seriously,
it is a restaurant, restaurant quality dish, beautiful plate it
up with all those flowers and fresh spring ingredients, slice
of lemon. I mean, you would pay at least fifty
dollars a plate for the same thing in most restaurants,

(31:42):
and you can make it yourself and it wouldn't cost you.
If you catch the fish, it's not gonna cost you
a thing. I mean, butter. You have to pay for
the butter or the wine. Okay, so it's gonna cost
you about a buck fifty. Let's just go with that.
Probably not that much either. I mean you're not using
that much wine or butter, so like less than a dollar.
So you can make this and just absolutely show off

(32:04):
because no one's gonna be able to buy that in
a restaurant, and you know it's nice. Just do be sure,
you know, if you do use nuts, whether it's almonds
or walnuts or pecans or whatever, don't burn them. Really.
When you begin to smell the nuts, they're already starting
to burn. Put them in, splash them around, just brown

(32:24):
them up a little bit, get them off the heat immediately.
When they brown, they get bitter. You really don't want
to do that, Adam, just before you put in the
wine and just barely cook them. And I go simple
on it. Don't don't overdo the herbs. Don't come. It's
a simple dish. It's not super complex. Don't confuse the palate.

(32:47):
In other words, you want to be able to taste
each ingredient. If you're using black loaves and locust blossoms,
you want to be able to taste and smell them.
If you're using nuts, you want to be a taste
and smell them. Of course, the fish is probably the
most mild of all ingredients. That's one reason I like
to use mushrooms in the sauce because the mushrooms actually

(33:08):
bring out the flavor of trout pretty well. Lemon juice
is essential. Lemon juice is really the only way you're
going to taste the trout is if you put limon
on it. The trout is just so mild, I mean really, Now,
it does depend on what time of year, and I'm
thinking early spring trout. It's not real fatty at that point,
so it does have a lighter flavor. And I'm talking

(33:29):
just you know, rainbow trout and cuddies and brooked trout.
I'm not talking like a big, heavy lake trout, which is,
you know, fattier, and it's going to taste more like
I wouldn't say more like salmon, but they're in the
same family, so you will get more of a stronger flavor.
I actually prefer that if I'm going to eat the

(33:50):
fish just by itself. But yeah, they're all delicious, but mild.
You really have to figure out how to enhance sunnatural
flavor of trout. And I guess for that reason, it's
probably most people's favorite fish because it's so not fishy
because it's it's so not strong in flavor, and a

(34:12):
lot of people don't like that, don't like a strong
flavored fish.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Me.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I like a fish that has some punch to it.
I mean, I don't mean, you know, off fishy flavors.
I want my fish fresh. It should not even smell
like fish. It should smell like the water it came
out of. And then, you know, I like a fish
that I can identify. My favorite fish of all is
red snapper or red drum. Red snapper be the top.

(34:40):
That's my favorite fish of all time. Next to that
would probably be a sheep's head or a sea trout.
Sea trout's very good. I love flounder. Fresh bluefish cooked
within like five minutes of being caught phenomenal. You know,
Tuna is a fishier, a fattier fish. If you like tuna,

(35:01):
you would love bluefish if it's cooked the right way. Yeah,
I mean, they're a bunch more. You know. I like
a good grouper and poppino. And this is I'm talking
all saltwater fish here. When it comes to freshwater fish,
probably bluegills, perch. I love some perch, crappie readier pumpkin seed.

(35:24):
Those just you know, fried up a great small bass
are really good. Catfish waits, it's good if it's clean water,
it's a fresh catfish. Fried catfish is phenomenal. Smoked is
even better. Yeah, Trout, I guess if I was going

(35:45):
to rank fish from my favorite to my least favorite,
trout's gonna come somewhere down there in the teens. I mean,
it's not going to be in my top ten. But
it is so mild and so easy to cook that.
I mean, you can make it a hundred different ways,
and you can make it really good. One of my

(36:06):
favorite ways to do trout. I hate a lot of trout.
I'm not putting trout down at all. I mean, it's
what's in the streams where I live in the mountains,
so I ate a ton of it. Just I guess
maybe to people in the coast, trout would be a delicacy.
For me in the mountains, seafood's delicacy. But lemon pepper
trout so easy, so good, you just filet or butterfly

(36:28):
that trout. Man, Well, you could leave it whole, but
I mean, really it's easier for file it or butterfly.
It take some lemon pepper, which usually is a seasoning
blend you can get from any grocery store. Dust it down,
fried in butter, and serve it up. It's ready in
five minutes, and that's actually really good. That would probably

(36:49):
make my top ten fish dishes. Serve with glass of wine.
You know, salad's just knockout some French fries. You know,
fried is good. Fried trout is good, but this says
very mild. Definitely need some lemon juice. Roulades are nice,
fish cakes are nice. Smoke trout's excellent. Smoke trout is

(37:12):
one of the best smoke fish, and trout row is
a caviar. It's fantastic. Yeah, I can't really think. I mean,
grilled is nice. Grilled with onions and lemon, a little
bit of olive oil always good. It's just so mild.
It's not like something I'm gonna make into a chowder,

(37:34):
a fish chowder. I'm not gonna fish cakes are okay,
definitely not gonna do a curry with it. Poach trout
is nice. Now if you want to do like a
corte boullon, not a cage in Cubian, but corteoung just
a little water with little parsley and bay leaf, a

(37:54):
little onion, teragon, little white wine, bring to simmer. Just
lower the trout in there till it's just cooked, till
it just starts a flake. Bring it out and serve it.
But it means so mild. I mean, it's just ridiculously mild.
If you know people that don't like fish, trout's always

(38:15):
the fish to serve them. Now, a lot of people
would say talapia or even freshwater perch, but tilapia is
fine if you actually catch it wild in clean waters,
which it's not native to America, so you're probably not
going to, or if it's actually raised in clean water,
especially in like an aquaculture system. Tilapia is great. Problem

(38:39):
is with farm raised telapia. The majority of what we
get in the United States is brought in from Asia
where they actually raise them in sort in sewage. The
telapia that you get in a restaurant or you buy
in the grocery store more than likely, I mean, there's
at least a fifty percent chance has been rare in sewage,

(39:01):
human waste, and it's full of chemicals and pharmaceuticals and nastiness. Nastiness.
I mean there have been stories of where tilapia have
been sent in hole and processed here, you know, gutting
him and finding tampons inside. I mean they're literally being

(39:23):
raised in the sewer in Asian countries and then sold
to America as like this mild tasting, really nice fish.
We don't need that crap. I mean recently we had
to do a recall on what radioactive shrimp being sold
at Walmart coming in from Asia. America really needs to

(39:43):
one clean up our waters, clean up our rivers, our lakes,
and our ocean, our shores, our inland waterways, and our
territory of ocean. Clean it up. And then we need
to really support cool fishermen, get rid of a lot
of the regulations that prevent people from catching fish and

(40:05):
just selling them to their neighbor. But for commercial fishermen,
they need to have an even playing field. They don't
need to compete against radioactive shrimp being brought in from
China or disgusting tilapia. And the American consumer needs to
redevelop an adventurous passion for seafood. Don't you know, bite

(40:28):
into all this fish is a little fishy. Well, yeah,
it's fish. You like tuna salad. That's a lot fishier
than most of the fish you're going to buy. But
for some people, for some reason, when people go to
a restaurant, they think their fish isn't supposed to taste
like fish. It's ridiculous. But with the same way with pork,
I mean they did they bred domestic pork in the

(40:50):
seventies and eighties to make it the other white meat.
Pork isn't naturally a white meat. You know. It's no
your pork CHOP's not supposed to look and taste like
a chicken breast. But that's what the consumer demanded. How
about we develop a taste that says, Ooh, I like pork,
or I don't like pork, I like fish, or I

(41:11):
don't like fish. I don't want a fish that doesn't
taste like fish, And I don't want a pig that
doesn't taste like a pig. One of the same is
true with chicken. They've bred a lot of the flavor
out of chicken and a lot of the color out
of the meat as well. An older chicken has a
different color than most of the chicken that you get
in the grocery store. But anyway, it's going to take

(41:33):
a real change of mindset that values fresh and local,
seasonal ingredients that have a unique flavor over McDonald's chicken
nuggets and where it's ioness take. Well, it's going to
start with the parents. Parents are going to have to
say sorry, little Johnny and little Jenny, I guess excuse me.

(41:59):
You can't have chicken nuggets every day. You can't have
you know, disgusting frozen pizza, you can't have Spaghettio's. You're
gonna have real food. And I'm gonna tell you this
is really good food, and you're gonna like it, and
your tastes are going to develop and mature as you
grow up, and you're gonna become a real gourmet. You're

(42:23):
gonna come to light collared greens and parsnips and turnips
and fresh fish and game meats and you know, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, as opposed to quarter pounders and
chicken nuggets. You're not gonna die of heart disease or

(42:43):
diabetes when you're in your thirties. You're not gonna develop,
you know whatever. Anyway I can go down that route,
you're gonna eat a real natural diet because this is
what we eat in our family and there's no alternative.
We're not going to McDonald's, we're not going to Heartise,
we're not going to Pizza Hut or you know whatever.
This is our dinner and if you don't eat it, well,

(43:06):
you don't have food tonight. You're going to go to
bed hungry. Pretty soon. That kid's going to develop a
taste for beats and spinach real quick, because trust me,
eating beats and spinach is a lot more pleasant than
going to bed hungry. But in order to do that,
you're going to have to have parents that actually cook
mules at home and don't pick up a bunch of

(43:28):
takeout and don't bring in a bunch of Doritos and
coke and pepsi, who actually make real food and feed
real food to their families and sit down to dinner
and eat together and everything isn't done on the run,
and it's not all fast food and convenience food and snacks.

(43:48):
You do that, and we can support our farmers and
our fishermen and our ranchers, and you know, it's not
just a bunch of cheap crap coming in from China
and South America. And you know, a lot of the
shrimp in America comes from Argentina, and that's a big issue.
You know, their fishermen make a lot less money than

(44:11):
ours do, so they can bring a product to a
store cheaper. It's not as good a quality shrimp, it's
not as fresh, but people, you know, don't know the difference,
because you don't know the difference unless you learn to
taste the difference. But anyway, yeah, I mean, we could
actually have a vibrant agricultural and fishing and ranching industry

(44:34):
in the United States, servicing entirely our domestic clientele, our
domestic audience, whatever you want to say. We produce some
far more food in America than Americans can eat. A
lot of it gets destroyed, just burned, left or rot.
And meanwhile, our farmers and fishers and ranchers and etc.

(44:55):
Are being priced out of the market by cheap Asian
imports that are often contaminated. Then you got the whole
fake meat crap. You got the vegan garbage. I mean,
you know, here's this vegan food. It's you know, it's
so good for you. It's not based out of animals. Meanwhile,
it has like a cup and a half of msg

(45:17):
in it and three cups of salt and artificial colors
and artificial flavorings, and it's probably going to give you
cancer and about two meals, but anyway, it's vegan, so
it's got to be good for you, right, No, And
then we got all our stupid government regulations that make
it illegal for people to just go out and catch

(45:39):
a few fish and sell a couple of extra to
their neighbor or you know, you're a single guy, you
kill a deer, You got plenty of meat for yourself.
Why can't you take a fourth of it and sell
it to a neighbor or too. But that's illegal, that's stupid.
So because of that, your population gets out of control.

(46:02):
There's not enough predation because that's what herd animals are
designed for a specific percentage of that herd is supposed
to be killed each year by other animals, including human beings.
They're not, so they're in destroying people's landscaping, getting hit
on the highways. You know, mass wasting disease that that

(46:26):
brain disease, whatever it's called, that will go through herds
and just wipe them out. You know, all that could
be managed very efficiently if you just let someone go
out and take a couple of deer and sell one
to a neighbor or to why the hell can they?
I mean, we pay our taxes, this is our country. Why.

(46:47):
I mean, when did the American government basically adopt the
dictates or the assumptions of England where that says we
own all the land and you're poaching the king's deer,
you know? No? I mean, yeah, they had to put
in some controls during the Great Depression when people were
starving and they were taking a few more deer than

(47:10):
was good for the population. Now we got more geese Canada.
Geese are taking down airplanes. They're plague in many places.
And still the hunting of geese is so regularly in
this country's ridiculous. You have to have a shotgun that
only holds three shells of a specific caliber. You have
to have a plug in that shotgun so you can't

(47:32):
slip in an extra shell. You have to get your
license and your tags. You are strictly limited, and you
absolutely cannot sell a goose to somebody else. It's ridiculous.
The golf courses are covered in geese. They're like vermin.
It's not good for the goose population. It's not good
for the human population, especially when they keep bringing down

(47:53):
airplanes and killing people. I mean, I've had I've known
several people who have hit geese driving along. They just
like flown right into their windshield and just about kill them.
Almost a flock of geese almost killed me one time.
I was driving on a wet road. It was raining,
and they just came right out into traffic and I
hit the brakes and started skidding. But our laws do

(48:16):
not reflect reality. Our laws are on the one hand,
preventing our domestic fishermen from being able to compete with
Asia and South America and such, and then will subsidize
the fishery the fishermen for their losses. So essentially you're

(48:36):
paying somebody not to fish. And now that's you know,
that varies by state, and that's like if you're lucky,
and it's usually like your you know, your family's been
in this fishery business for so many generations, you get
to qualify for that program. Everybody else just had of luck. Meanwhile,
you might go down to your local clean spot of water,

(48:57):
you know, if you have one, whether it's a lake,
or river and you throw out a trot line, or
you spend a night fishing for catfish and you catch
more than you can eat. You know what do you do? Well,
I guess you have to throw them back. Well, wouldn't
it be good, especially in times of economic distress or

(49:18):
if you've lost your job, if you could stick two
or three of them in the freezer and take three
or four and sell them to your neighbors. Yeah, it
really would. You would think, on this land that our
ancestors fought and died for, we'd have a right to
do that very thing, wouldn't you. But unless you live
in certain states like Louisiana a few others, you can't

(49:39):
do that. In North Carolina you cannot do that. There
are certain exceptions, there are certain but anyway, for the
most part, you cannot do that. And yeah, it gets
even more specific when you get into saltwater fish and
shrimp and crabs and all that. It's just ridiculous. I mean,

(50:00):
we can get a lot of people off of welfare
and medicaid and such if we could just let them
go out and you know, catch a few fish and
sell them to their neighbors. Used to say, give the
man a fish and he'll fish, he'll eat for a day.
Teach them to fish, you'll eat for life. And now
it's like, prevent a man from fishing and put him
on government assistance, and then the vegans will tell him

(50:23):
he's bad if he eats a fish. It makes no
sense whatsoever. But it's even more, Oh gosh, it's so
bad when it comes to game. I mean, we really
do have an issue with deer and geese. We actually
really should stop stigmatizing the wearing of fur because we

(50:47):
got a huge issue with coyotes and those coyote people
should be able to go out and trap those coyotes
or shoot those coyotes. They're really disrupting ecosystems. If you
really care about the environment, you have to get rid
of the non native coyotes they're not native to east
of the Mississippi, or at least reduce their numbers that
they're so they're not just absolutely disrupting entire ecosystems. But

(51:13):
you wear fur and some you know, animal rights person
is going to go throw pain at you if you're lucky.
And meanwhile, a coyote eats seventy pounds of meat a day.
They're wiping out entire species. You know, they don't care,
they're all self righteous. But then you get into foraging,
mushroom hunting. I mean, it's just ridiculous. We are so

(51:37):
overregulated to the point that it's hard for someone to
make an honest living using the bounty of God's creation.
And on the other hand, you got other countries that
do not have our best interests in mind, where people
are making less than a dollar a day or a
dollar a week, and they can just dump you know,

(51:58):
nasty shrimp until or questionable meats or well, you know,
I medicinal herbs. A lot of what's imported into the
country is impure and there's no regulation on it. You're
regulated up the butt, so to speak. In America. If
you want to go into the business of selling herbs,

(52:21):
either by themselves, plane or in preparations like tinctures and such,
it's ridiculous. Meanwhile, in most Asian countries and South American
countries in different places, there's like no check or regulation.
They're not inspected. They send you, you know, they ship
in twenty or thirty pounds of pick your herb, whateerb

(52:44):
you want to use Saint John's wart that's not really
an Asian herb, but we'll go with that. There's no
one checking to see is this actually Saint John's wart?
How fresh is this Saint John's wart? Where? And how
is it harvested? Did it come from a protected area?
Is it endangering the you know, the environment there, the
over harvesting, none of that. So they ship it in

(53:07):
in like thirty cents a pound. And meanwhile, our domestic
producers can't make a living, can't put food on their
table unless they sell it for ten or twenty or
thirty dollars a pound. And what do you think happens anyway? Yeah,
black locust is the one I use of the locusts,

(53:31):
the ravenas honey locust. I do collect the pods to
use as a sugar substitute. Really good, very closely related
to carib by the way, So definitely a great tree
to have around, very useful wood. The black locust posts

(53:52):
are perfect for fencing because they will not rot, they
don't have to be treated. Wonderful useful plants. Some of
them are luguminous, which means say self fertilize and fertilize
anything to grow around them. So it's really good to
plant them around your gardens and such, or let tomatoes
binding tomatoes climb up them, and yeah, black locust good.

(54:17):
Government regulations bad. Have a great week, and I'll talk
to you next time.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
The information this podcast is non intended to diagnose or
treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write
has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not
a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice
of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating irbles. Therefore,
I'm really just a guy who says IRBs. I'm not
offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I

(54:48):
write or say is accurate or true. I can tell
you what earths has been traditionally used for. I can
tell you my own experience, and if I believe in
herb has helped me, I cannot nor what I tell
you do the same use an herb. Anyone recommends you
are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health.
Humans are individuals, and no two are identical. What works

(55:09):
for me may not work for you. You may have
an allergy of sensitivity and underlying condition that no one
else even shares, and you don't even know about. Be
careful with your health by continuing to listen to my
podcast or read my blog you read it. Be responsible
for yourself, to your own research, make your own choices,
and not to blame me for anything ever.

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