everyday resistance
Signs of the resistance:
1) It’s ramp season. These onion cousins are one of the only truly wild foods we eat, and I have worked hard to make contacts with local foragers who know where to find them. They are the first local fresh vegetable here in upstate New York, so I always go crazy buying way more than I need. I’ve bought over 20 lbs of ramps in the last two weeks, and have batches of ramp kimchi and ramp pickles fermenting away in the basement.
2) A friend of mine has gotten into the shiitake-cultivating business. Just writing these words makes my fingers tingle: fresh, local, organic shiitakes! I spent last night helping him impregnate logs with shiitake spore.
Do you know about the amazingness of mushrooms? This interview provides a pretty good overview, but please turn to the work of Paul Stamets for more.
I try to stay away from button, cremini, and portobello mushrooms, because Stamets says that strains of these mushrooms can contain carcinogens. So, I try to focus on shiitake, oyster, maitake (oh, maitake, queen of mushrooms), and other “wild” mushrooms. There is fascinating evidence that not only do these mushrooms help to clean up and clear out a really wide spectrum of toxins in our bodies, but that mushrooms, or, more accurately, mycelium, can be used to clean up toxic environments. It’s called mycoremediation, and it’s fucking amazing.
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