Sorry Broch, I ought to have been clearer. I didn't mean to imply that you were mistaken. I know it is edible, I have eaten it, but I didn't think it worth the effort tbh.
I haven't eaten the leaves though they're supposed to be a good vegetable, once cooked. I just, no, I don't fancy them. Hearing your comment about eating fire really discouraged me even more.
I think the processing to make the flour is often when explanations get muddled. Roasting works, but to make the flour, the Portland Sago, does need processing, does need steeping, etc.,
I think an awful lot of 'famine' foods are being quietly removed from modern texts on edible foods. I don't think they're any more toxic than they ever were, but we are becoming a very litigatious society, and sometimes better safe than sorry.
I happily eat the arials of Yew fruits, but try telling folks now that it can be done safely...living proof, eaten them for years....just don't crack or eat the seed in the middle. Doesn't need many of the seeds to kill you.
One outdoor education 'specialist' ranted at me when I happily picked and ate a handful of them. They were "English Yews" and not edible he angrily stated. I told him they were all edible, with care, and quietly finished my snack.
We do generations a great dis-service when we lie to them. By all means treat them with caution, but confusion is more likely to cause someone harm I reckon.
Nowadays all too often a piece of bad advice or just wrong advice is quoted and then requoted and so on ad infinitum. At this rate we'll have nothing to forage and not much to eat either.
Potatoes produce fruits, berries really I supppse. The tubers are good food, the berries most definitely are not....now people are saying that potatoes really aren't that good for us, that they're toxic really ....I jest you not, this glaikit stupidity was told to me with all seriousness and the lady could even quote what website she'd read the article on, and the magazine where she'd seen it too.
Funny old world sometimes, isn't it ?
M
