Bamboo Shoots
By Nic, Core Team member
Bamboo
Bamboo is a wonderfully sustainable building material due to the speed in which it grows and its weight to strength ratio (stronger than steel for its weight!!). Bamboo is of huge economic value and is not only used in the building industry, but it can be used also for eating (more on this later!), as a cooking device, burnt for charcoal, woven into a fabric, made into paper, used as a musical instruments, and much more!! At the Ranch we use it for many of these things; the most noteworthy being our use of it in our natural buildings (read here about how to treat your bamboo). We have 6 structures that are built almost entirely from Bamboo including a nursery, a meeting room, our classroom and the popular guest structure the Hooch. We have also used it as firewood and to make biochar and we have several bamboo instruments. Today however we are going to talk about the latest way we have learnt to use bamboo and that is in our farm to table world!
A clump of bamboo on our farm
Bamboo as Food
Humans have a long history of eating bamboo, but we are not the only animals that love eating bamboo. The Giant Panda loves eating the young bamboo shoots as well as the leaves and stems, along with a number of other animals including the bamboo lemurs of Madagascar and mountain gorillas in central Africa. Chimpanzees have also been seen drinking fermented bamboo sap which has turned alcoholic. It will not be a surprise then to hear that Yes! we can eat bamboo too, in fact its delicious and during the beginning of the wet season it is an abundant source of food.
At Rancho Mastatal we have some of the most revered species of bamboo for eating and for building. The species that we have that are known for providing tasty bamboo shoots are Dendrocalymus asper, Gigantochloa sp. and Bitcheeyana sp.
These are just 2 week old bamboo shoots!
Farm to Table Bamboo Shoots
Bamboo shoots contain a cyanogenic glycoside that produces cyanide in the gut. This is not good for you as you might know, cyanide is very poisonous, so we have to be careful to process our bamboo shoots carefully in order to make them edible. As it turns out this is relatively simple! Just boiling the bamboo for around 10 minutes removes that compound and can also remove any bitterness that can be present in the shoot. We found that adding ample salt and some sugar to the water before boiling makes them instantly a delicious crunchy snack! We have also lacto-fermented them (make a very pungent ferment!), pickled them in vinegar, and just boiled them and added them to dishes. But before you get to eat the bamboo shoots you have to know when to harvest them and how to prepare them.
Harvesting bamboo shoots
Peeled bamboo shoot
Generally speaking you want to harvest them as young as possible as they can become bitter if they are too old. As you may know bamboo grows incredibly quickly, so you will need to keep an eye on your clumps as a daily practice. As the rains start here in Costa Rica around April/May (on the pacific side) we found that initiated the growth of the new shoots. There is a delay though between the start of the rains and the shooting of the bamboo and this will vary be species and by the year. So its safe to say that once it starts to rain you need to start checking your clumps regularly. We found that this year the Guadua started shooting first (not a good bamboo to eat) and Dendrocalymus was the last one to start shooting in late June/July. Ideally you will want to harvest the bamboo shoot when it is around ~10-15” (~25-35cm) tall. Cut it at an angle as low as you can. This will then shed water and is less likely to lead to disease entering the plant. Generally speaking from a well-managed clump you should be harvesting about 33% of the new shoots. Take them from the places where they are not as ideally situated ie. Close to another shoot, with a blocked path etc… To learn more about how to manage you bamboo, join us for our bamboo management workshop.
Processing Bamboo Shoots
Take the bamboo shoot back to the kitchen and cut it lengthwise in half. You should be able to get your thumb and then your hands between the outer layers and the inner solid part and pry off the sheathing. This will leave you with a rather alien looking shoot. At this point it’s a good idea to chop it into strips several inches wide and then slice across the strips into thin pieces. The thinner the pieces the more bitterness is removed by cooking. At this stage you have the option to lacto-ferment the bamboo in a 2-3% by weight salt brine. This produces a very pungent ferment that smells very reminiscent of canned bamboo shoots from the grocery store. By lacto fermenting the shoots you also remove the cyanogenic glycoside and you gain the nutritional value of a raw bamboo and the probiotic qualities of the ferment.
By cooking these thin pieces of bamboo in a salty and slightly sweet brine we were able to produce a delicious treat with a great crunch, the flavor is not too dissimilar to Heart of Palm, although there was a large spectrum of views on what it tasted like. Everyone agreed that it was a delicate flavor that had an excellent texture.
Cut lengthwise
Then using your thumbs peel off outer layers
Bamboo Tea
The upper parts of the shoot that will have been left attached to the sheathing when you pried it out makes a very nice and refreshing tea. By taking a paring knife you can remove any of the soft parts still attached to the sheathing and dry them in the sun (or a dehydrator). This can then be added to hot water and left to steep.
Fresh bamboo shoot
Want to Learn More About Bamboo?
Join us for one or both of our upcoming bamboo related workshops!
Bamboo Management April 6 - 9, 2021
Bamboo Construction April 12 - 17, 2021
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Check out our past blog article on Bamboo Treatment