Eating Maggot Sh*t

This is what it’s all about, this growing-your-own-food thing: having enough to put some up for the winter -- and, of course staging your own personal anti-Monsanto protest -- which means that while Greg is goofing off on his bike in the wilds of Utah, I’m just here working my fingers to the bone (righteously!) like a good little (righteous!) country woman: weeding, harvesting, freezing, dehydrating, gleaning…

Chamomile flowers were plucked to dry for tea.

From dirt & dogs

Since hot temps make most greens bitter and tough, I pulled the remainder of the broccoli raab and kale; blanched and froze them. As we’re now seeing 100 degree days, it’s time to rely on the more heat tolerant chard for summer greens.

From dirt & dogs

The cherries are all picked, some from my own Sweet Stella tree, some gleaned from a neighborhood tree that we get permission to pick. Since the tree is right on the sidewalk, the low branches are picked over early by passersby, but we take a ladder and are able to get a decent haul from the harder-to-reach branches that no one else bothers with.

From dirt & dogs

From dirt & dogs

For the first time, we have more fresh cherries than we can eat without getting daily belly aches, so I’m dehydrating a bunch of them.

From dirt & dogs

Oh, the things they don’t tell you about processing food for canning and drying! The cherry pitter is a very cool little non-mechanized gizmo...

From dirt & dogs

...but be warned: wear red because cherry juice will splatter all over the work area and you. The pit frequently takes the bottom of the cherry with it, and these little cherry bottom blow-outs wing all over the kitchen.

From dirt & dogs

Most of us normally just pop whole cherries in our mouths and spit the pit out, yes? In the process of cutting each cherry in half – as required for dehydrating – I’m seeing just how many cherries come with the little protein bonus of an icky white larva residing in the center of the cherry along side the pit.

From dirt & dogs

Extensive internet research tells me that these are most likely larvae – or maggots if you prefer – of the cherry fruit fly: “Up to 40 eggs have been reported as being deposited in a single fruit. Normally, only one maggot develops in each fruit, even though many eggs may have been deposited in that fruit. Primary damage results from the feeding of the larva within the fruit. Infested fruits appear normal until the maggot is nearly full-grown, at which time sunken spots appear. Maggots and their frass within the fruit render the product unsalable.” (Source: http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/fcfly.htm)

Frass, in case you didn’t realize it, is a nice little word for – I’m sorry – maggot shit.

Most of us, apparently, eat a whole lot more frass than we’d care to know.