WI: Europeans Cultivate Cattails?

elkarlo

Banned
A newspaper article: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...Uw1ZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UkYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1086,798268

Dr. March could harvest 140 tons of rhizomes per acre, which is 32 tons of flour. I presume this is with modern equipment and intentional management, other references I've found are 6,475 pounds of flour per acre. And that's a giant difference.

More protein than corn or rice, but slightly less than wheat or potatoes.
Only potato flour has more minerals.
Lower water content than other flours, except wheat flour.

OK. Obvious benefits there. If it were possible to massively cultivate, Europe would have a higher pop for sure
 

ingemann

Banned
Malaria???

Malasria existed in all of Europe up to modern day, it was usual called some local version of "cold fever", the reason that it wasn't a major problem, was that only very few species of mosquitoes could spread the parasites. The primary one was a kind of mosquito, which prefered cattle (the secondary one was that it was a less efficient carrier of the parasites than its African cousins), and as cattle no longer was kept in the same house as the family (historical the stable was part of the main house until the 18-19th century among poorer peasants), these mosquitos contact with human feel, and the European malaria parasite died out.
 
What is so unusual about that? Until the 20th century malaria was endemic in the Netherlands (Dutch wikipedia mentions 10.000 suffering from it around 1945). I assume that the situation was more or less the same in the rest of Europe.
In south-eastern England it was common enough to be known as 'London Ague'.
 
Yes, malaria was really big in some Mediterranean areas, apparently enough that independent mutations emerged and spread to favor resistance to it; exactly like the one causing sickle cell anemia, they can have nasty consequences (check out for Familar Mediterranean Fever for an example I know; I am not sure about Mediterranean Anemia, but I have been told it spread as its genes favor malaria resistance as well).
 

elkarlo

Banned
Yes, malaria was really big in some Mediterranean areas, apparently enough that independent mutations emerged and spread to favor resistance to it; exactly like the one causing sickle cell anemia, they can have nasty consequences (check out for Familar Mediterranean Fever for an example I know; I am not sure about Mediterranean Anemia, but I have been told it spread as its genes favor malaria resistance as well).


yep, they covered that in MASH.

But seriously malaria was an on going concern in most of Europe. Even as far north as Sweden.
 
A thought arises - how would cattails taste compared to the alternatives? Given a choice, we're going to favor what tastes good - and given their native environment relative to where we do best, we do have one.
 
Maybe they could be cultivated later on? Maybe in the 1900s or later, someone points out the nutritional benefits or taste of cattails, and a small movement to begin cultivating them begins?

From expirieince, they're actually pretty tasty when roasted :D
 
That's actually quite a great idea : could it be an alternative to the disappearance of marshes in Europe (as in Italy)?
 

Thande

Donor
Maybe they could be cultivated later on? Maybe in the 1900s or later, someone points out the nutritional benefits or taste of cattails, and a small movement to begin cultivating them begins?

From expirieince, they're actually pretty tasty when roasted :D

That's actually quite a great idea : could it be an alternative to the disappearance of marshes in Europe (as in Italy)?

Maybe it could be part of a 'back to nature' movement in reaction to the Industrial Revolution, or a modern environmentalist one. There is an existing push to recreate some wetlands for biodiversity reasons, it could easily become part of that.
 
Maybe it could be part of a 'back to nature' movement in reaction to the Industrial Revolution, or a modern environmentalist one. There is an existing push to recreate some wetlands for biodiversity reasons, it could easily become part of that.

Or an odd project by some figure - remember, there was a brief movement to make Guinea Pigs a European diet staple, surely the Cattail could find support?
 
That's actually quite a great idea : could it be an alternative to the disappearance of marshes in Europe (as in Italy)?

I am afraid that the vast majority of people would really care much more about not having malaria than to eat roasted cattails, especially as far as the likely top guys in Italy are concerned.
 
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