We Love Talking About Kudzu
'Cause it's a thing.
I like to listen to audiobooks. I don’t listen to them as much as I once did because I’m not running anymore. Training for a half marathon gives one plenty of time to absorb a good book through the earbuds, and Stephen works from home now, so I always have company on walks around the neighborhood. I still like to listen to books when I’m puttering around the house or getting ready in the morning.
I’m listening to one now called After the Rain by Karen White. It’s a light read as one would say—as many of her books are—but it’s entertaining enough to keep me listening. There is one thing about it that is driving me absolutely bonkers, though. The book is set in Walton, Georgia, and the narrator keeps pronouncing kudzu as “koodzoo.”
It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. But then I remembered it’s chick lit set in Georgia, so kudzu will have to come up at some point as a scene setter.
Kudzu has been called “The Vine That Ate the South” mostly because that’s what it looks like it’s doing. When kudzu gets started, it covers everything. As a kid, I was told you could watch it grow, and since it grows up to a foot a day, you could technically sit on your porch all day and notice a difference as time goes by, although I wouldn’t recommend planting kudzu close to your house. I actually wouldn’t recommend planting it at all. These poor people planted kudzu vines a couple of months ago, and you see what’s happened already:
Kudzu is native to Japan and southeast China and was brought to the U.S. in 1876 for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition as a lovely ornamental groundcover. Kudzu didn’t so much escape the garden as it was intentionally planted all over the place by the Soil Conservation Service from the 1930s to the 1950s as a natural erosion control mechanism for ditches and roadsides around railways and backroads. They actually paid farmers to plant it in their fields. Problem was it grew so fast the ornamental plant soon became a noxious weed.
And grow it does! Kudzu spreads by runners, rhizomes, and vines that quickly root at nodes on the stems to form new plants. Vines can be as long a 100 feet, and quickly grow up trees and any structures in their way. Kudzu is also pro-Climate Change since warmer weather and milder winters give it a longer growing season. It’s hard to get rid of too. If you have a kudzu infestation, your best bet is probably to turn a goat or two loose in your kudzu patch, and let them get to work.
Because kudzu is edible. In 2018, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution helpfully asked: “Kudzu is edible. Why aren’t we eating it?” The answer seems obvious to me, but apparently, some people are cooking with kudzu. Word on the street is it tastes like spinach, which can be a selling point or no depending on how you feel about spinach. (The Jacobs house is pro-spinach but iffy on kudzu.) People make jelly from the blossoms, and the little bit I’ve tried was tasty. Dehydrated kudzu root is used in southeast Asia to thicken sauces and soups, and Chinese medicine uses powdered kudzu root as a remedy for hangovers and flu symptoms.
You can’t eat the seeds and seed pods, but the leaves, roots, and blossoms are fair game. Some chefs are working on ways to incorporate kudzu into their dishes, but others don’t think there is enough taste to it to bother. And besides, who wants to eat stuff that’s known for growing in ditches all over the South. You won’t find me pulling the car over to harvest kudzu from some old homeplace anytime soon, but I wouldn’t be against trying a bite cooked by a chef who knows what he or she is doing.
I’ll leave you with a poem about kudzu (because of course there’s one) written by none other than James Dickey of Deliverance fame:
Kudzu
Japan invades. Far Eastern vines
Run from the clay banks they are
Supposed to keep from eroding
Up telephone poles
Which rear, half out of leafage
As though they would shriek
Like things smothered by their own
Green, mindless, unkillable ghosts
In Georgia, the legend says
That you must close your windows
At night to keep it out of the house
The glass is tinged with green, even so
As the tendrils crawl over the fields
The night the kudzu has
Your pasture, you sleep like the dead
Silence has grown Oriental
And you cannot step upon ground:
Your leg plunges somewhere
It should not, it never should be
Disappears, and waits to be struck
Anywhere between sole and kneecap:
For when the kudzu comes
The snakes do, and weave themselves
Among its lengthening vines
Their spade heads resting on leaves
Growing also, in earthly power
And the huge circumstance of concealment
One by one the cows stumble in
Drooling a hot green froth
And die, seeing the wood of their stalls
Strain to break into leaf
You can read the entire poem here.
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
Remember this sweet girl singing “Let It Go” in a Ukrainian bomb shelter?
Her name is Amelia Anisovych, and her family has made it safely to Poland. She got a chance to sing before thousands at a concert to benefit Ukrainian refugees. You can read her story and see the video in The Washington Post:
“A Ukrainian girl sang ‘Let It Go’ in a Kyiv bunker. She just performed for thousands in Poland.”
Spring has sprung in Georgia, and my sinuses are telling me The Pollening is just around the corner. We’ll have to bring in the cushions from the back porch soon to avoid a giant yellow mess, but that’s OK. Hope you’ve been able to get out and enjoy the warmer weather as much as we have.
Until next time,
Karla
Now is about the time that the Silver Comet trail smells like grape jelly because of the kudzu blossoms! I actually sorta miss that - not the vines though. : /