Photo and text from Wikipediaa
Only two genera of Lumbricid earthworms are indigenous to North America while introduced genera have spread to areas where earthworms did not formerly exist, especially in the north where forest development relies on a large amount of undecayed leaf matter. When worms decompose that leaf layer, the ecology may shift making the habitat unsurvivable for certain species of trees, ferns and wildflowers. Another possible ecologic impact of greater earthworm numbers: larger earthworms (e.g. the night crawler, Lumbricus terrestris, and the Alabama jumper, Amynthas agrestis) can be eaten by adult salamanders, and when the salamanders do consume the earthworms they are more successful at reproduction. However, those earthworms are too large for juvenile salamanders to consume, which leads to a net loss in salamander population.Text from me:
While I was in the back yard eating worms to repent for stealing Olmanriver’s words, I got to wondering which ones were the newcomer worms and which ones were the natives. From what I can determine, the larger worms are the newcomers.
I'm hoping that Olmanriver might share how that Indian people of Covelo ate them. Maybe they boiled up some pinole and wrapped them in pinole and seaweed and ate them like sushi. They are probably very high in protein. Or maybe they just ate them ala-carte.
e
Posts
13 comments:
This may come as a surprise to you Ernie but I already knew all this stuff about worms.
I only eat worms after they have been processed by trout. I do this by way of gutting the trout and rolling it up ( the trout )in foil with salt, pepper and butter and then roll it around in the campfire coals a little.
Oregon
Ha, Ernie, I think this is the best recipe you are gonna get!
I used to like to watch the chickens fight over a worm.
Olmanriver got me all goosy after chewing me out for stealing his words, and it occered to me that maybe the Indians ate worms because they were starving. If that is the case, I feel bad for making light of the worm recipes, but if it was something that was part of their normal diet it would be interesting to know how they used them.
There is just so much about history that we don't know.
Olmanriver must have his crankypants on today...leading you to believe that it was angle worms and not Army worms that the Yuki would eat.
"And then after the harvest in the fall, after they gathered the acorns, after they do that, they would have these, they call them Army worms. They were so long {approx. 3 inches}.
Caterpillars looked like it but they were slick. When I was small, I used to eat them but after I growed up, I couldn't, cause they used to fry them and make them crisp an' I used to eat them. But they called them Army worms cause they traveled in bunches an' they would go to the ash trees." Cyetta Heenan Williams and Smith Williams in The Singing Feather, Tribal Remembrances from Round Valley.
That is interesting information Ernie.
Anthropological Records 8:1
Culture Element Distributions: XXI
Round Velley by Frank Essene says the Kato had earthworms in their diet. But not the Yuki. My bad, sorry Ernie.
Here are some practical earthworm eating:
( tips :)"“Worms taste like dirt, but you can purge them by soaking them in water overnight. Then they taste like worm, which isn’t a big improvement.”
Purging worms before eating seems to be advised of everyone who has eaten worms. If soaking them overnight accomplishes the purge, then I would begin every recipe with an over-night purge. I actually found a recipe for earthworms, but it is more humorous than helpful. The recipe included onion, mushrooms and sour cream, ingredients you are unlikely to have on hand in the wild. But if you are interested in the weird check out the
recipe “Natural Treat –Earthworms” under the main dish section at the web page http://www.bertc.com/recipes.htm."
"Eating earthworms can reduce cholesterol, as the basic essential oil of earthworms is Omega 3"
"Did you know the ancient Egyptians were the first to recognize the beneficial status of the earthworm? Cleopatra (69 – 30 B.C.) recognized the earthworms’ contribution to Egyptian agriculture and declared them to be sacred. Removal of earthworms from Egypt was punishable by
death. Egyptian farmers were not allowed to even touch an earthworm for fear of offending the god of fertility. A 1949 study by the USDA confirmed that the great fertility of the soil in the Nile valley was due in large part to the work of earthworms."
"Charles Darwin (1809 –1882) studied earthworms for more than forty years and devoted an entire book (The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms) to the earthworm. Darwin said, “It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.”
82% protein. Moles which eat three times their weight a day subsist on worms, as do shrews which eat every hour.
Anybody that says "it's easier to say you're sorry than ask permission" is full of crap. And, I'd bet they've never had to eat worms!
Sounds like someone didn't "de-vein" their worms.
Anybody worried that two Bull-shistorians are having a spat, shouldn't. Yes, there was a small email transgression, but it was a crime of passion... history being oldpeople's porn, I can completely understand how it happened.
Corrective steps have been taken, multiple apologies accepted, and look... now we know all about eating earthworms. The sacrifices some blogmeisters will go to for their commenters, and posts! I can't think of just the right adjective.
Sure wish you guys would talk a little about those big ol' Horse Lizards we had,back in the"DAY"
I assume you are talking about alligator lizards?
Oregon
Post a Comment