Oct 05 2008
Dirty Scaly Chicken Toes
If I were to say the words, “Fall Color,” what would you picture? Sugar maples in Vermont? An aspen grove in Colorado? Probably not, I would guess, a saltmarsh in Delaware. Well, here’s a shot I took on Friday (03 October):
A pleasant little scene of autumn golds, but nothing that would draw busloads of leaf peepers. However, looking down at the more open patches of marsh yields a more polychromatic vista:
That red surrounding the green cordgrass is a marvelous little halophyte that goes by a wide variety of names: glasswort, pickleweed, and marsh samphire, or generically, as Salicornia. I don’t know which Salicornia this is, but it is a wonderful little plant. It begins the season pale green, but acquires a deep sunburn by late summer. Now, it is so red that it might be called hamburger plant.
It’s quite edible, too. It’s crunchy and juicy and delightfully, unsurprisingly salty. You can actually pickle it, though I’ve never taken the time to do so–I just nibble bits of it straight from the marsh, imagining the exotic micronutrients it surely must contain having all sorts of salubrious effects on my thyroid and so on.
My favorite common name for Salicornia is “chicken toes,” which wonderfully captures the plant’s odd shape. It also inevitably makes me think of a cartoon by B. Kliban, who is most famous for his mousy-eating cat cartoons, but also produced more bizzare material that I think surely must have been a major inspiration for Gary Larson when he created the Far Side.
Simply entitled, “Harry,” the cartoon’s single panel depicts a nattily dressed gentleman sitting at the dinner table. In front of him is a plate of chicken toes–real chicken toes, quite a number of which he has shoved up one of his nostrils. The caption is a bit of playground doggerel: “Dirty scaly chicken toes. Harry puts them up his nose.” You can see it here: B. Kliban’s “Harry”
And if you don’t know Kliban’s work, you could start here, at a fan site that I’m sure raises all kinds of copyright issues: Davey C.’s B. Kliban Worship Page.
And no, I have never put Salicornia up my nose. Not even once.
Beautiful photos and you are a funny guy. Enjoyed.
TWO posts in one day? What have you done with the real Jeff Gordon, you body snatcher? Love the chicken toes post.