Epazote.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.herbs
Subject: Epazote
From: ao465.detroit.freenet.org (Susan L. Nielsen)
Date: 2 Oct 1995 04:39:47 GMT

Just finished harvesting a bunch of leaves for the freezer, and pulling up my Epazote plant by its really impressive roots. This plant is a fairly obnoxious thing to pass in the herb garden, as a brush with its foliage releases a profound creosote smell. Having packaged an amount probably adequate for several years' use, I now smell like a paving crew on an August afternoon. 8-P

I grew this charming addition to the garden with the assurance that its leaves, added to bean dishes, would relieve an indelicate tendency to [ahem] flatulence. I have experimentally used _small_ amounts in bean dip. It's an interesting thing that the paving crew smell does not seem to impart itself to the dish. But: I have no guideline as to a proper amount to be added to a dish to achieve a remedial effect. A little bowl of bean dip is one thing. Autumn is here, however, and it's time for ham hocks 'n beans. This is main course food. Do we have any experienced contributors here? Any Hispanos who might share a cultural tidbit?

It may be that the quality of my domestic life depends on an effective application. 8-*

From: trdchsr.aol.com (TRDCHSR)

I thought the epazote tasted like mint flavored gasoline. All my cookbooks say to use the epazote interchangeably with cilantro. I thought that it was for the flavor but that can't be right.

From: Richard Grossman <acudoc.val.net>

>I thought the epazote tasted like mint flavored gasoline.

Epazote is delicious when used properly. Try cooking a pot of black
beans with 6 or so epazote leaves and an onion added at the beginning of cooking. . . or perhaps a quesadilla with an epazote leaf or two cooked into the cheese. It's good. Epazote is also a good herb for fighting off intestinal parasites.

From: callie.writepage.com (Callie)

>Just finished harvesting a bunch of leaves for the freezer

The name, in Aztec means stinkweed :) roughly translated. You either like it or hate it

>But: I have no guideline as to a proper amount to

I checked all my Mexican cookbooks: whatever a "good-sized sprig" of fresh epazote is. I would guess it's about a tablespoonful of chopped fresh or a teaspoonful of dried crumbled.

Start with that for one pot and increase it.