Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Korean soup
With sufficient knowledge you can find food anywhere. Late yesterday afternoon I peered out our window on my way to the treadmill and saw an elderly Asian woman and a little boy peering into the "grass" along the sidewalk in front of our essentially "wild" lot. Forty minutes later they were still there, or back, with bags, wandering around our property, periodically bending over, and apparently harvesting something. I approached them with our two vicious attack Spaniels and asked what was up. The grandmother smiled very nicely -- as if this was absolutely normal -- and the boy (who was maybe 12 years old with big hornrimmed glasses and who introduced himself as "Peter" in a thick Korean accent) said that they were going to use the little plants for "Korean soup." Sadly, he did not know the English name for the soup ingredient, and my botanical knowledge ends just on the other side of "beefsteak tomato." I'll try to get a picture of it and tap into the vast TigerHawk readership.
But it's nice to know that even in late March our land spontaneously produces food.
10 Comments:
By 
Diane Wilson, at
Wed Apr 01, 11:56:00 AM:
"Korean soup" - those are magic words. We have a wonderful Korean restaurant nearby, family-run, with a fabulous assortment of soups.
I'll be interested to hear what they were looking for. Got photos, by chance?
By 
, at
Wed Apr 01, 02:23:00 PM:
I can remember, as a child, harvesting dandelion greens in the early spring so that my mother could make dandelion soup.
Best wishes in your search,
Jim
By Escort81, at
Wed Apr 01, 02:31:00 PM:
TH, you would make a good Norwegian, in allowing others to not only transit your property but pick from it:
It is the rare Norwegian, from commoner to king, who doesn’t relish their unspoiled countryside. The right to do so is ensured by the 1957 “Lov om friluftslivet” (Outdoor Recreations Act): “At any time of the year, outlying property may be crossed on foot, with consideration and due caution.”
What a tolerant neighbor. If this is not ipso facto proof that you are not a fascist, I don't know what is. I wonder how many other Princeton residents would have been as matter-of-fact, whatever their political orientation.
Of course, your attack spaniels could have licked them to death.
Perhaps if there were not so many slip-and-fall attorneys out there, we might have a social sentiment about harmless tranisting of certain areas of private property, similar to Norway.
By , at
Wed Apr 01, 05:17:00 PM:
As a fellow Korean in Princeton, I am so embarrassed. She should know better than just loitering in other people's yard. Argh.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Apr 01, 06:51:00 PM:
skimiam, no worries at all. If perhaps they should have known more about property, they made up for it in friendliness. In any case, our lot has a long frontage that goes around a curve, and because it is "wild" it is not entirely obvious that this was our "yard". Indeed, they were picking in a spot that is not even visible from the house in the summer because of leaves on the trees. If I had wanted them to leave I would have asked them to.
By , at
Wed Apr 01, 07:08:00 PM:
T-Hawk: perchance , do you have ginko trees on that end of your "lot"?
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Apr 01, 07:44:00 PM:
No, we do not. They were picking little green things shooting out of the ground.
By , at
Wed Apr 01, 08:52:00 PM:
By , at
Thu Apr 02, 12:14:00 AM:
You'd be surprised what Koreans can do with even the most unsuspecting plants. Even here in S. Korea (that's right TH, you even have readers in SK!), you find people in parking lots or behind retails stores picking herbs for their dishes/soups. They look like worthless weeds from a distance, but they do it right.
-j.
By TOF, at
Mon Apr 06, 09:29:00 AM:
She probably was gathering young nettles for nettle soup.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Nettle
