Yucca Flower Comfort Food: From a foraging friend's family

Yucca flowers make such a satisfying comfort food! And it's easy to make, too. I learned this recipe from a foraging friend who makes this traditional dish for his family in El Salvador. -------- I'm not going to beat around the bush. I'm going straight to the flower stalk! The flower stalk of a Yucca. I'm going to use these blossoms to make a great comfort food. There are a lot of different kinds of yuccas. I'm not talking about the Yucca roots that you may see in a grocery store. That's a different plants that is completely unrelated to these yuccas. I'm talking about true yuccas, plants in the Yucca genus. Some grow in the wild and some are common ornamental landscape plants, too. This yucca in my neighborhood is a weak-leaf yucca, Yucca flaccida. I grew up with wild soapweed yucca in the sandhills of Kansas - that's Yucca glauca. It looks like this one, but with really stiff leaves with a super-sharp point at the end. It's a lot easier to pick the flowers off these short yuccas! The yucca in my own yard is the Mound-lily yucca, Yucca gloriosa. It can grow 4 or 5 feet tall. So I just cut off the whole flower stalk with some loppers. I take the whole stalk back to the kitchen and then sort through the flowers. On this yucca, the buds are sweet like peas. The flower petals are pretty good, too, straight up. And even the little unfertilized fruits in the center are good, too. I will caution you that some kinds of yucca have better-tasting flowers and buds and fruits than other kinds. Some kinds of yucca will have bitter-tasting saponins in them. But the saponins can be removed by soaking or blanching in water. So it's worth learning the details of your own local yuccas. A foraging friend of mine lives in El Salvador, where the flowers of the Giant Yucca, Yucca gigantea, are a traditional food. The Giant Yucca flowers are so meaningful that they are the national flower of El Salvador - the izote. What I'm cooking in this video is based on a traditional comfort food for my El Salvadoran friend, galberto, and his family and his children. I learned this recipe from him. I start by taking off the flower petals and blanching them in boiling water for about 5 minutes. I saute and onion, add the blanched flowers, and keep sauteeing that for a few more minutes. Galberto would add a hot chili about now, but I don't do that, lol. I just add a tomato - this a frozen homegrown tomato that I cut up. I let that cook down a bit and then add an egg and keep stirring it around until it sets up. What is a comfort food? to me, it's simple homestyle cooking that gives us a feeling of well-being. It's usually associated with happy memories of childhood. It reminds us of home and family, and can help us ease distress that we may be dealing with. Well, this is ready to eat - with avocado topped with Wild Sumac spice and served with wild pin cherries. Is it good? Let's get a live taste review! I eat this meal every year, when my yucca flowers bloom. Here in June of 2018, it reminds me of my foraging friend and how important family is. I hope you can find some yucca flowers around you, to give this recipe a try. Maybe it will become a comfort food for you and your family, too. If you have other ways that you like to eat yucca flowers, let us all know in the comments below! ---------------------------------- Plants mentioned: Weak-leaf yucca - Yucca flaccida Soapweed yucca - Yucca glauca Mound-lily yucca - Yucca gloriosa Giant yucca - Yucca gigantea Wild Sumac - Rhus glabra Wild Pin Cherry - Prunus avium -------------- My playlist on foraging for wild foods:    • Foraging Wild Edibles: Real Food for Regul...   My playlist on homestead cooking:    • Cooking: On the Homestead and in the Outdoors   My channel: Haphazard Homestead:    / haphazardhomestead   Music: "Carpe Diem", "Garden Music", "Laid Back Guitars" and "Marty Gots a Plan" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... ------------------------ My mailing address: Haphazard Homestead PO Box 40721 Eugene, OR 97404 --------------