One man's peat

[muckefuck]

Spring moved forward a peg while I was away. Walking to work today (the only time I ever seem to take a stroll outside anymore), I saw magnolias and azaleas in bloom, forsythia that was past its peak, and budding tulips and hyacinths. I was discussing some of these developments with a co-worker in the staff lounge. She talked about some of the spring customs of her childhood, like collecting dandelions for wine and eating dirt.

Excuse me?

"If they were doing construction, Momma would go and get some clay dirt. Construction workers used to use if for making something, I don't know what. She would bake it in the oven and we'd eat it. It was a cleansing thing." She said it didn't taste like dirt at all, "it had a clean taste. It had to be yellow or red in colour." It sounded to me like she was describing the yellow clayey subsoil of where I grew up. Nevertheless, tilling the dark, loamy surface soil fondly reminded her of the taste.

She grew up near Cairo, in a part of the country once named "Little Egypt" and now more often referred to as "Southernillinois". In my hometown of the St. Louis, people from there were considered the hickest of the hicks--and yet never once do I remember anyone accusing them of anything so outré. If we had only known...

Update

I mentioned this to monshu the other night and his reaction was basically, "This is documented in a lot of cultures." He hadn't heard of any cleansing properties, only that it was a response to a lack of minerals in the diet. This sounds as suspect to me as the argument that the Aztecs practiced cannibalism to compensate for a protein deficiency, but there may be better evidence for it.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

If you find an exotic-dirt restaurant, I'll totally go with you.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to imagine a chain of establishments trafficking in Little Egyptian cuisine--and failing.