re:pods

[vivek gharpure]

Brown colored pods growing on a vine.

At daulatabad, india

[Barry Stock]

"Cow itch."

Mucuna pruriens

I am growing this myself. Does any one on the list have actual experience with cooking and eating the beans? I know there is a special method, and I wonder whether it is worth the trouble.

-bs

On Dec 22, 2008, at 9:48 PM, vivek gharpure wrote:

Brown colored pods growing on a vine.

At daulatabad, india

<IMG_3848.jpg>

[Madhuri Pejaver]

in marathi called as khajkuyali because there is horible itch you get if you touch the pod.
covering the pod are lot of hair which if touch to the body it starts itching all over.
sometimes in movei it is shown the students making fun of the teacher by spreading some powder on the chair, it is the same .
i am not sure but it has some medicinal value.
as somebody has written to make some curry out of it it will be a life time experience. but just as knowledge i wont mind knowing it
madhuri


--- On Tue, 12/23/08, vivek gharpure <vvgha...@dataone.in> wrote:

[Yazdy Palia]

Hi friends,
I do not remember if it turns out brown in the end but I have eaten a
beans quite like it. It releases a die when immersed in water after
cutting, however it is quite nice when coocked the beans is quite
fleshy. I do not know the name.
Madhuri's remark that it itches is not true in case of this beans.
However there is a wild climber which produces a similar bean and when
the beans are mature they explode in order to distribute the seeds and
at the time of the bursting of the pod, the hair like follicles is
carried by the wind to quite some distances and if one touches these
follicles the skin really itches. Once again I do not know the name.

regards
Yazdy Palia.

[J.M. Garg]

I posted the flowers recently on the group at http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix/browse_thread/thread/ce034cb164b21cc3#

 

Here are relevant extracts from Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucuna_pruriens

Mucuna pruriens bears white, lavender, or purple flowers. Its seed pods are about 10 cm long^[1] and are covered in loose orange hairs that cause a severe itch if they come in contact with skin. The chemical compounds responsible for the itch are a protein, mucunain,^[1] and serotonin. The seeds are shiny black or brown drift seeds. It is found in tropical Africa, India and the Caribbean.

Mucuna pruriens is sometimes used as a coffee substitute called "Nescafe" (not to be confused with the commercial brand). Cooked fresh shoots or beans can also be eaten. This requires that they be soaked from at least 30 minutes to 48 hours in advance of cooking, or the water changed up to several times during cooking, since otherwise the plant can be toxic to humans. The above described process leaches out chemical compounds such as levodopa, making the product suitable for consumption. If consumed in large quantities as food, unprocessed Mucuna pruriens is toxic to nonruminant mammals including humans.

2008/12/23 Yazdy Palia <yazdy...@gmail.com>

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