Re:How do people learn to cook a poisonous plant safely?
by hinkley on Wednesday September 04, 2019 @03:36PM
(#20880656)
The Greeks and Romans used to eat lupine seeds (it's a legume, they look a bit like edamame, but very, very, very high in alkaloids).
The simplest solution was throw them in a bag with a string and soak them in a stream for a week or two. The labor intensive solution involves boiling and rinsing them three or more times.
Legumes are good protein, but come on. Lupines do self-sow though, and you can probably get more than a cup per plant, so I expect you could be looking at an entire field of lupines and thinking it would feed your extended family for a week.
A lot of toxic plants can be washed with clean flowing water for a few days. Chop them up and put them with a net in a clean natural stream if available for three days or so. Test the end result for the same way you would do with other unknown edibles (armpit, lips, etc).
One could probably try all the mentioned ritual techniques.