Have you ever eaten swamp cabbage? If you’ve ever eaten hearts of palm, you have. That’s another name for it.
Although they are both the same thing, for the purpose of this diary, when I refer to hearts of palm, I mean the commercially canned ones and when I refer to swamp cabbage I mean those that are harvested in the wild. I’d say the main difference between the two are size. HOP needs to be slender enough to be packed whole in a regular sized can, or a comparably sized jar, whereas swamp cabbage can be huge. However big or small they are when harvested, it is not a sustainable method because it kills the trees.
Florida’s State Tree, the Sabal Palm (or palmetto) is also known as the cabbage palm (or palmetto). Although the government frowns on the harvesting of palm cabbage, they have no actual laws against it, last time I checked. Some people justify the harvesting of palm cabbage by saying the palm trees “grow like weeds.” I don’t know if that is true. I would hate to see the palm trees depleted.
From the blog at FloridaMemory.com, which is the State Archives-
The tradition of eating hearts of Florida palm trees likely predates the arrival of Europeans in North America. Captain Hugh Young, Andrew Jackson’s topographical engineer, sketched out a few remarks on the subject in his notes regarding the territory between the Aucilla and Suwannee rivers in 1818. He wrote:
“In the cypress swamps between Assilla and Sahwanne there is abundance of cabbage palmetto. […] It rises with a single stem to the height of forty feet and supports at the top a large mass resembling an immense pineapple, from which project a number of three-sided stems three or four feet long with leaves like the low palmetto but much larger and without prickles. The vegetable substance from which the stems and leaves are supported has in its center a white brittle mucilaginous mass composed of the centre folds of the leaves forming it, which may be eaten raw and when boiled has a taste somewhat like parsnips. In times of scarcity the Indians live on it, and it is said to be wholesome and nutritious.”
While there are many preparations using swamp cabbage, it also refers to the cooked dish that is prepared like, regular cabbage. I grew up eating swamp cabbage, though the last time I had it was probably over 25 years ago. When I was googling the subject, some people said things like, “You haven’t lived until you’ve had swamp cabbage.” LOL. I personally wouldn’t go that far. I still remember what it tasted like. Not my favorite thing in the world, but it was good enough to eat.
Florida Memory also provided this hand-written recipe. I’ve never prepared it myself, but I do remember watching the elder folks prepare it. I would say they did it pretty much as written in the recipe, but I doubt they used garlic.
The finished recipe looked pretty much like this, as I recall.
The owner of the photo above states:
I prepared the "cabbage" and Nedra cooked it in the traditional way, boiled down with pork. Though edible, it is bland and not particularly delicious, a fortunate circumstance as harvesting the bud is lethal to the plant.
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