[Sca-cooks] hearts of palm

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Gaylin Walli <iasmin at home.com> wrote:
>  ...I've looked in all the sources I have available to me about
>  "hearts of palm" and can't seem to find much in the way of
>  history. Do we have any indication on the early mentions of
>  this plant and any possible food uses nearer our researched
>  time periods?

I have no idea. I'd love to know.

Two things from my personal 20th century experience:
1) All the canned hearts of palm i've seen have been from Brazil...
2) I've never encountered hearts of palm eaten in North Africa or
Southeast Asia.

Of course, the palm tree is killed to extract its heart - this is not
a joke, even though it does sound like one. This isn't like fruit
which is picked and the tree continues to produce year after year.
No, once the palm is the desired size it is felled and the heart
removed.

So, with no real evidence to go on, but my own experience, i wonder
if it was from a particular species of New World palm.

I hope more information is divulged...

Anahita
who as a vegetarian was once fed a meal that consisted entirely of
brown rice and a couple palm hearts (and that was it) by some hard
drinkin', steak eatin' friends. At least they were trying to
accommodate me.