Herbs containing iron (you'll have to look each one up to find out if they are RICH in iron!). And you'll have to check each one for its medicinal actions, too! Alfalfa, Almonds, Angelica, Anise, Apple, Apricot, Avocado, Banana, Basil, Beans, Beetroot, Bilberry, Blackberry, Black Cohosh, Blue Cohosh, Broccoli, Burdock, Capsicum, Carrot, Catnip, Cayenne, Celery, Chamomile, Chervil, Chickweed, Chicory, Comfrey, Cucumber, Dandelion, Dates, Dulse, Echinacea, Eyebright, Fennel, Fenugreek, Ginger, Ginseng, Goldenseal, Horehound, Horseradish, Horsetail, Kelp, Kidney beans, Lemongrass, Lentils, Lettuce, Lima beans, Liquorice, Mango, Marshmallow, Milk Thistle, Mullein, Mustard, Nettle, Nuts, Oats, Paprika, Parsley, Passionfruit, Peach, Pear, Peas, Peppermint, Pineapple, Plantain, Pokeweed, Potato, Prunes, Pumpkin seeds, Radish, Raisins, Raspberry, Red Clover, Rhubarb, Rice, Rosehip, Rosemary, Sarsaparilla, Scullcap, Sesame seeds, Sheep Sorrel, ShepherdÂs Purse, Slippery Elm, Soya beans, Spinach, Strawberry, Thyme, Tomato, Uva Ursi, Watercress, Whole grains, Yarrow, Yellow Dock, Yerba Mate, Zucchini Other sources: Liver, beef, lamb, poultry, clams, oysters, mussels. fish. Eggs. Blackstrap molasses. BrewerÂs yeast. Cooking acidic foods such as tomatoes in cast-iron pots.

Wow, that's a lot of plants! I don't have a list of what I'm growing in my little gardens -- sometimes it takes me a couple of weeks in the spring to realize that that weird looking weed in the corner is something I've had for years. I just assume that more plants than not will grow in this area! One of the more unusual plants I grow is agapanthus. Not a particularly hardy variety, this was simply a florists' plant my mother gave me four years ago. But it's come up reliably every year for the past three seasons in Central Ohio. It's planted against a south-facing brick wall with excellent drainage, and apparently doesn't realize it's not in zone 8+ anymore! One of my mother's more spectacular plants is a 15 year old calamondin orange that arrived as a little "get-well" houseplant. It spends the winter on the unheated glassed in back porch in Cincinnati, and now stands over 6' tall in the pot, and is nearly 4' around. It always has flowers and fruit on it, and we've picked 200 ripe fruits at one time.

You know, I think our traditional Thanksgiving meal is about as close as we get to indigenous food, right? The wild turkeys were here when the first Puritans arrived. The native Americans were raising corn and squash and beans, I think, and sunflowers as well, which was a major vegetable protein source for them via the seeds which are easy to preserve. Cranberries are native in some parts of the country, and so is wild rice. So, all those ingredients are more or less indigenous American foods. Maybe one problem is that our nation is so large geographicaly, so we do have more regionalized "America food" depending on what foods are readily available in each region instead of a well-known "American" cuisine. For example, if you grew up in Boston, you might argue that lobster and Boston baked beans are true American cuisine, but if you grew up in Georgia or South Carolina, maybe you'd insist it was barbeque, baked beans, cornbread and grits. I was thinking about what kind of native food a forager would find growing naturally here in Oklahoma....there's wild game, of course, and wild blackberries and wild grapes here in southern OK, and some of you probably have wild huckleberries or currants in some eastern parts of the state that we don't have here. Here in southern OK, we have the wild prickley pears (you can make jelly from them) and native pecans and walnuts, and persimmons. There's also several kinds of wild plums, and you can fish in the Red River for catfish. Dorothy, I think I am going to grow peanuts next year so we can make our own peanut butter without all the additives. I remember having a Mr. Peanut machine when I was a little kid....you put the peanuts in his hat and turned the handle and got peanut butter (a peanut paste probably would be a better description). It was simple, so it seems like it'd be simple to make homemade peanut butter in the food processor or blender. Carol, I love all those old Southern Living recipe books...they are my kind of cooking! Another great cookbook full of old-style southern cooking is Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook, which came out at about the same time that her book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, was made into the movie of the same name. If my grandmother and southern aunts had written a cookbook of the foods they prepared their entire lives, it would have been very, very similar to Fannie Flagg's cookbook. Dawn

Nothing fab about it? I disagree for many reasons. Recent hype over pokeweed is growing to mythic proportions. I've never seen one actual news report of someone being poisoned. I've tried to find any articles or reports of pokeweed poisoning and none were about anything but warnings published in newspapers and websites about the horror of having one of these native plants in ones' midst. If one can be found, please share it. When we go camping in a state park in a nature preserve in FL, there are tons of poison ivy and pokeweed in and around (and above) the campsites. The PI is one of the plants that appear on a sign about various common plants in the park, and in the little info pamphlet they give you so you can handle yourself more appropriately and safely in the park. The sign basically has a more polished version of, "here's what it looks like, it's here because it's native and important source of food for birds so don't touch it if it gives you a rash." There's no mention of pokeweed, growing within reach of hundreds of kids and bearing its berries for months every year. If it was a problem, they would at least put it on the sign. Poison Control has a calm, reasonable article. http://www.poison.org/articles/2012-aug/pokeberries-and-grap... Their statistics also indicate that kids are much more likely to be poisoned by cleaning stuff or medications (click "poison exposure statistics, pokeweed isn't among the things listed): http://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/poison-control-center/p... From a very brief search, one can glean that various honeysuckle berries pose a similar degree of threat. Nobody is worried or warning about kids eating those, and they probably are much more common in the garden/landscape. https://www.google.com/#q=honeysuckle+berries+toxic People buy and plant Oleander, a much more toxic entity, in their yard on purpose, but if you have a pokeweed, you will be urged to kill it. Guaranteed, every time the plant is mentioned, somebody will mention how menacingly dangerous it is. Have you ever seen a can of Oleander greens for sale? http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ecoph24.htm I agree that one needs to follow a recipe if they're going to experiment epicuriously, but there should be some perspective about discussing its toxicity, and/or suitability for any particular gardener/garden setting. There are various "toxins" in many parts of plants widely considered edible/food, and not all parts of every plant are edible. Tomatoes and potatoes come to mind. Tomato and potato leaves aren't considered edible because of the solanine. This is why potatoes are stored in the dark or they turn green and can then cause indigestion because of the increase in solanine. If one is in the U.S., P. americana is a native, an important food source for many birds. One article says that pokeweed has long been thought to have medicinal value. "At one time it was employed to cure everything from boils to acne. Today, pokeberry is being researched as a possible treatment for cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, a chemical found in pokeberry juice has been used to successfully treat cancerous tumors in laboratory mice. The chemical is also being tested to determine whether it can protect cells from HIV and AIDS. Remarkably, the lowly pokeberry may help solve the energy crisis. Researchers at Wake Forest University have discovered that a dye derived from pokeberries doubles the efficiency of fibers used in solar cells to absorb solar energy." The sprouts pull easily the first year, and it is not difficult to keep mature plants from occurring by pulling or hoeing/scuffling sprouts while young and delicate. Boiling water poured on a mature root will kill it. After watching plant ID forums since they were invented, I've seen that most people who ask for pokeweed ID make the effort to say something about how attractive they think it is. In all my years of gardening in both OH and AL, I've seen pokeweed sprouts in my own garden maybe a total of a dozen times. There's also the dye thing that's had varying degrees of prevalence throughout history, and something people still like to do. One of my favorite things about this plant is the dis-proven myth that the Declaration of Independence was written in pokeberry ink. No less charming even if not true, because it could have been. I was thrilled to get a scroungy little sprout in our front yard last year. It was a puny thing and I guess it died because it's not back. If anyone is looking for a rationalization to keep a pokeweed plant that grabbed their attention enough to try to ID it, there are plenty - plenty of reasons to keep it, and PLENTY of posts from people asking "what is this interesting/attractive/many-other-positive-adjectives plant?"