TO ME IT WAS MILD TASTING WITH THE CONSISTENCY OF SCRAMBLED EGGS: ACKEE By Reverend Barbara Sexton

ripe ackee fruit

Dear Ones:
     Half the fun of traveling to foreign places is sampling the local food.  But the FDA has published some official warnings about Ackee fruit in Haiti.  To me, the safe, edible part was mild-tasting with the consistency and appearance of...scrambled eggs!  But today the fear is that hungry people will eat unripe fruit and the wrong parts of the fruit.
     As for safety, like so many other foods, one must know which parts are safe to eat and, of course, one must know how to safely prepare such foods.  This comes from someone who used to catch, prepare and eat her own blowfish like they were going out of style.  These little fish are quite deadly if anything but the shrimp-shaped lump of tail meat is eaten.   We used to 'do 'em up' in batches like fried shrimp and never gave it a second thought.  And it cost us  almost nothing.  Today, of course, fancy 'platters' of blowfish are prepared by expert chefs in Asia and elsewhere at exhorbitant prices.
     We are used to having our exotic foods in already safe-to-eat forms and it is worthwhile reading information such as linked below in the event that we have to ever 'live off the land'.  We must know what to eat as well as what NOT to eat.
     Here in Connecticut, I'm looking at a large mountain laurel bush right outside my window.  While it's beautiful and durable, I'd wager that few people know that local Native American tribes used a 'brew' of mountain laurel leaves to commit suicide.. Or that local Native Americans committed suicide at all!  Just don't eat those berries no matter HOW hungry you are! 
     Our garden contains rhubarb, whose stalks are edible, but whose roots are poisonous.  Would you know which parts of what to cook up?
     "Ackee rice, salt fish are nice and the rum is fine any time of year" sang Harry Belafonte.  I've eaten goat, conch, guinep and all sorts of other delicious Caribbean food.  One can definitely live off the land and sea anywhere in the world with a little education.  You can start yours here:
    http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/WhatsNewinFood/ucm197850.htm

With Love in Christ,
Reverend Barb Sexton "The Biblical Biochemist--Where Science Meets the Cross"

unripe ackee fruit