Tag Archives: Aralia racemosa

Fairchild’s Experiments with Udo from 1914!

Yesterday, I introduced Agricultural Explorer David Fairchild who, inspired from visiting Japan, was determined to try to introduce udo (Aralia cordata) and wrote an interesting paper 120 years ago giving more details about this novel perennial vegetable: 
Udo introduction to the US with cultivation instructions (1903)
11 years later in 1914, he wrote a really interesting report summing up his experiences with udo.  It blows my mind to read how much work was done on this plant over 100 years ago, but sad to see that it was never adopted in a big way! You can read the whole report and I recommend you do, but I’ve picked out some titbits from the report that I found particularly interesting followed by a few other interesting excerpts from various inventories of introduced plants to the US!

Download (PDF, 5.69MB)




Enhanced udo salad

…..and adding a few other things to the one species udo and American spikenard salads (Aralia cordata and Aralia racemosa) and this was the result, the summer’s first extreme salad, on the anniversary of the filming of the extreme salad youtube videos (“B” in the following link!) http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=16712

American Spikenard salad

Last night, I tried American spikenard (American Udo) or Aralia racemosa for the first time! Although Aralia cordata (Japanese Udo) had a hint of bitterness after blanching, the spikenard was mild with no bitterness…a bit like cucumber was my guest’s comment 
NB! The spikenard was more thoroughly blanched than the udo, so not a reliable comparison!

Peeled and sliced American spikenard shoots

As with yesterday’s udo salad, I simply added a dressing of roasted sesame oil, salt and pepper! Delicious!

American spikenard to the left and Japanese udo to the right!

 

Udo salad

Walking past the Udo (Aralia cordata) patch yesterday morning I noticed that the shoots had outgrown their bucket and, as usual, had thrown the bucket down the hill, eager for some sunshine. Sad for it, its effort was in vain as they were bound for the kitchen! Here’s an album of pictures showing how I prepared the udo salad.
I alsø blanced Arali racemosa for the first time, but haven’t tried it yet…

The bucket of cordata let some light in at the top, so the shoots were greener than for A. racemosa

Autumn in my forest garden

My forest garden continues to be super-productive, my udo is on its way back to the soil and is preparing for next year as are my three devil’s walking sticks, Aralia elata as well as Aralia racemosa and A. californica.
There are a lot of apples to start drying soon!