Geophagy - What's on the menu - Dirt

[packman]

It’s after a rainfall, when the earth smells so rich and damp and flavorful, that Fannie Glass says she most misses having some dirt to eat.

”It just always tasted so good to me,” says Mrs. Glass, who now eschews a practice that she acquired as a small girl from her mother. ”When it’s good and dug from the right place, dirt has a fine sour taste.”

For generations, the eating of clay-rich dirt has been a curious but persistent custom in some rural areas of Mississippi and other Southern states, practiced over the years by poor whites and blacks.

But while it is not uncommon these days to find people here who eat dirt, scholars and others who have studied the practice say it is clearly on the wane. Like Mrs. Glass, many are giving up dirt because of the social stigma attached to it.


http://extragoodshit.phlap.net/index.php/southern-practice-of-eating-dirt-shows-signs-of-waning/#more-369603

[dawg]

1. In Georgia, we only eat the white dirt.

?strip=all

[packman]

2. Well, of course, what else does one expect in Georgia?

- And Gourmet at that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Call it something like "artisanal regolith" and sell it at Whole Foods

and the trendier health food stores at a ridiculously high price. That will make it a thing and all the cool people will be into it.

[Solly Mack]

4. I knew women who ate dirt when I was growing up in Georgia.

I tried it once, against my mother's wishes, but I didn't like it. It had an interesting taste, but the aftertaste was unpleasant.

Some of those same women would also eat starch.

Many carried their stash around in plastic but some argued the bag needed to be paper to keep the proper flavor. They all said foil ruined the dirt.

I guess because I saw it so much as a child that I don't find the custom strange.