Nice zombie, because I forgot it and this–
–gets a renewed +1, and I have something to add to the case of Canis lupus familiaris, the phenotypic variation of which I never fail to point out in conversation at the dog park (not only because it’s interesting but so I can sound smart and use the word “phenotype” in front of strangers).
Also, speaking of salad greens, age has withered and custom staled my wit. I don’t get this, if I ever did:
Moses and Aaron on a stick!
Still
I know a :smack: or :smack::smack: is coming…
if it helps just call them “button cabbage”. That’s what they call it in other languages
This is true of most parts of most plants, but especially the fleshier parts of plants.
Plants are like The Think from the Stephen King book movie, you know, the one with Kurt Russel. Every part is a potential new whole. Consider: potatoes are grown from other potatoes, ditto garlic and certain kinds of onions. Trees are often grown by planting twigs taken from other trees, or scarring a tree limb and wrapping dirt around it until it grows roots, then chopping that off and planting the root-dirt-bag. Most commonly, the top of one baby tree is chopped off, and the a twig from the desired-to-be-cloned tree is installed in the wound; plants have no active immune system, but they do heal wounds, so when the plants heal, the top tree is growing out of the roots of the bottom tree, making one whole new plant. This is called “grafting”. At the extreme, to avoid a certain very bad disease that’s been spreading, banana plantations will grow new banana trees from tiny slices of banana tree that are sterilized in a lab and cultures and grown into ne little baby trees.
All this is a big part of the reason we even have agriculture. If a new plant can start from a part of an already-grown old plant, it has a lot more energy, plus an already-growing growing tip or embryo or whatever, so that it can grow quick. This principle especially applies to tuberous starchy staple crops, which are frequently grown from pieces of another starchy root
Jerusalem “artichokes” aren’t artichokes really. They are the root/tuber of a sunflower (girasol corrupted to “Jerusalem”) that tastes like a true artichoke.
And my preferred dip is mayonnaise with a little Dijon mustard, thinned with milk to a creamy consistency.
They’re also in the same family (different ‘tribes’ though) as true artichokes- Asteraceae, the daisy family.
Caution: I’ve never eaten Jerusalem artichokes (I’ve used them for an experiment), but they store carbohydrates in the form of fructans, which are apparently hard for some people to digest and cause some discomfort.
Also, reproducing a plant from vegetative tissue (like roots) has the advantage that the offspring will be a genetic clone of the parent, which isn’t true if you reproduce a cross-pollinating plant from seed.
As an addendum what happens to the various Brassicas that make them very tasty raw but inedible, at least to me, when cooked?
Peter
I’m more than a little anxious here about the roots (heh) of my knowledge of the world…so what are seeds, then? Backup?
Sexual reproduction. 
True dat.
I shouldn’t even be talking to you until you explain your joke.
Asexual reproduction, sticking a branch in the ground and rooting it, produces a clone just like the plant it came from. Seeds allow genes to be used, so that the plant can vary. Bigger or smaller fruit, for example, or more colorful blooms.
Yes, duh…<insert old vBulletin roll eyes>…I got that… just because I can’t get a joke doesn’t mean I’m not smaaht, like Fredo…
ETA: OIC…maybe you thought that I thought that “sexual reproduction” was the joke I didn’t get and needed to be explained. Because of the smiley. In which case you’re forgiven this most recent non-insult. It’s the other joke, goddamnit.
Having said that, I don’t see the point of the smiley.
More evidence that your and my concept of jokes may never overlap.
I’m still waiting for someone to make a connection between Kol Nidrei and Jerusalem artichokes.
My wife cuts them into quarters length ways, (or sometimes just shreds them) place in frying pan, add a little water with beef stock and chopped garlic. Stir fry till slightly brown. You can also add a bit of black bean sauce.
They taste magnificent.
Yup, but while we’re on the subject, let’s clarify one more thingy for the gardening-uninitiated. A LOT of plants, while grown from seed, still don’t or just barely engage in full-on sexual reproduction because the flower fertilizes itself. Legume flowers, for instance, are encased in two flower petals that are closed and form a little compartment. Inside the compartment, at some point, since the wind and stuff always causes some motion, the sitgmas eventually touch the anthers (the penies touch the ginies). It might not be stigma and anther, I may have confused the terms.
All self-pollinating flowers do this, not just legumes.
This is technically sexual reproduction, but since the mom and dad are the same individual, there is very little genetic variation, and so the offspring, the seeds, come up very “true to seed”, which means grow up having the same or close to all the parent’s traits.
Did you know that if you boil Brussels sprouts too long, they start to stink? Well, I call it stink, others call it an “odor.”
Well they are cabbage.
I don’t get the Kolrabi stuff either. Break it down for the non Jew.
Great line for an Internet dating site profile.
Since we’re back on brussels sprouts - I just picked a big batch for Thanksgiving. Still weighing sauteed versus steaming (may go with both options).