Kudzu: Friend, Foe or Food?

By: Angela Gillaspie Copyright © May 2007

Right about the same time NASCAR waves the green flag to start another racing season, a gazillion (give or take a million or two) Kudzu sprouts wave their green flag-like leaves and begin their race to cover the South.

Kudzu, the Napoleon Bonaparte of the plant kingdom, has a very rich yet misunderstood history. Way back in time, Kudzu grew over on the other side of this rock in China and Japan. Those folks favored Kudzu's large potato-like root, using it both as a food and as a medicine.

In 1876, the Centennial Exposition to celebrate America's 100th birthday was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For a gift, the Japanese government built a lush garden filled with Japanese-native plants, and among them was Pueraria Lobata - also know as Kudzu. American gardeners loved the glossy leaves and sweet-smelling blooms and before long our friend Kudzu appeared in gardens everywhere. Call me crazy, but I really wonder if this could've been a Japanese "grass-roots" campaign to conquer our country.

With the 1920s came the determination that Kudzu had much more to offer than being just another pretty plant. Down in a Chipley Florida nursery, the cows and goats got into Lillie and Charles Pleas's flower garden. Passing up roses and petunias, the critters zeroed in on the Kudzu, thus inspiring Lillie and Charles to sell Kudzu through the mail as fodder. Their nursery, Glen Arden Nursery is still standing today and out front there's a sign: "Kudzu Was Developed Here." So now you know where to send your cards and letters!

During the 1930s, everything went wrong - there was prohibition, the stock market crashed, gangsters roamed freely, and the Dust Bowl was created from erosion and drought. No wonder this era was named "The Depression." USDA researchers discovered that Kudzu's deep and long roots held the soil together and would greatly combat erosion. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to not only help the environment, but also to help reduce unemployment. The USDA imported Kudzu and the CCC in turn paid hundreds of young men to plant it. The newly formed Soil Conservation Service also promoted the public to use our friend Kudzu because it was the "miracle vine."

Around 1953, the U.S. government discovered that Kudzu grew just a little too well and stopped urging folks to plant it. Kudzu stopped erosion, but it also stopped trees from growing; it covered just about everything in its path like power poles, barns, and little old fellers that like to sit on the bench whittling and spitting. Southerners started closing their windows at night to keep the Kudzu out, and mothers warned their children to never nap in a Kudzu field or they might get wrapped up.

Researchers began trying to develop a stronger herbicide to kill our foe Kudzu. One such researcher, Dr. James Miller of the U.S. Forest Service in Auburn, Alabama spent a good 18 years looking for methods to eliminate our miracle vine. Unfortunately, his best efforts created an herbicide that made Kudzu grow better. Dr. Miller conceded that the best ways to fight Kudzu in your yard were prayer, get a herd of hungry goats, and give up and move to Canada.

In 1972, not being able to find a way to eradicate Kudzu, the USDA officially stated for the record that our foe Kudzu was a weed. The love affair was finally over.

Or was it?

We Southerners have always been thrifty, finding creative uses for things around us. We discovered that possum tastes like chicken and that anything is good when it's cooked in pork fat. Kudzu is no exception. Most of the plant can be eaten - just make sure that you pick or dig Kudzu that hasn't been treated with chemicals. Here's a breakdown of the most popular portions of Kudzu, the food:

• Leaves. Having a mild "green" flavor and full of fiber, the tender leaves can be used like spinach, as salad, quiche, and even chopped up and cooked like Poke Salet and Collards. The young Kudzu shoots are great in a stir-fry, tasting similar to snow peas. The bigger leaves can be fried crispy or steeped in boiling water to make a delicious tea.
• Blossoms. The grape-smelling blossoms make delicious jelly, candy, and syrup. There have also been occasions when some of my unnamed relatives used the sweet blossoms to make a sweet homemade wine.
• Vines. You can't eat the vines, but these sturdy fibrous creepers can be woven into baskets, wreathes, and other artsy stuff, plus they've been baled and fed to livestock.
• Roots. Kudzu's big bodacious starchy potato-like roots are full of protein, iron, fiber, calcium, phosphorous, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and a bunch of other nutrients that I can't spell. Most often the roots are made into a cooking starch used to coat foods to be fried and to thicken sauces and other liquids.

Kudzu roots have also been used for a ton of studies. For thousands of years, the Chinese have used Kudzu to treat fever, headaches, allergies, diarrhea, and alcoholism. Present day researchers have done a bunch of tests using rodents, alcohol, and Kudzu extract. The reasons for these tests were either to find a cure for rodent alcoholism or faking the test to get government funding to finance snipe hunting/Jack Daniel hunting parties. Most testing was done on rats, but Harvard used hamsters because "hamsters naturally choose alcohol over water." This has been a well-kept secret because what would the neighbors think if they knew that Junior's hamster "Elvis" was an incurable alcohol-craving rodent with a history of BRUI (Ball Rolling Under the Influence).

When tested on humans, the results were inconclusive, the Kudzu extract caused no differences in sobriety and alcohol craving - except an urge to gnaw, hoard food and roll in a ball.

There is no final word on Kudzu - is it friend, foe, or food?

It helped with erosion yet smothered our oak trees and little whittlin' fellers. Plus, it's tasty, keeps us healthy and regular, so, I reckon it's all three. Kudzu is an adopted Southerner, because after it was transplanted into Southern soil, it flourished. Love it, hate it, or eat it - it's all fine, although you might want to close your windows at night.

Just in case.

Want some Kudzu recipes? Click HERE!

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel's green funnies!