When Leah and I were first "courting" we were out walking near First Bridge. We hiked up to the top of the hill and built a small inuksuk. We were sitting back enjoying the view and Leah reached down and pulled up an Oxytrope (Oxytropis sp.), aira in inuktitut by the root. It has a tap root and she brushed the dirt of and told me to try it. It had a familiar taste, one from my youth and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was. We pulled up several more and munched away on the tasty roots. Living off the land you know.
After a bit it finally came to me, that the taste was similar to Caragana (Caragana arborescens) flowers. Now, I think that this may be a prairie thing but Caragana is a hedge that every second house seemed to have when I was growing up. It has yellow flowers that we used to eat as kids. Personally I preferred the unopened ones, that resembled small bananas but the open ones were just as tasty.
It isn’t unusual that they would have similar tastes as they are both legumes, even though I was eating completely different parts of the two plants, I’ll have to try Caragana roots sometime when I’m back in Roblin. I was amazed at how the taste immediately took me to my youth, and just how powerful the feeling was. Even though I didn’t know the what the taste was, I knew it was from my childhood, and I felt transported back in time. I wish I knew the mechanics that connects senses such as taste and smell to memory, but I know that they are closely tied.
And the reason for this trip down memory lane to my first taste of aira was a large feed of aira last night, sauteed in butter. Leah brought home a big bag of it from Victor Bay last night and we immediately fried it up and finished it off. Now if only I had tried frying Caragana flowers in butter…