Greetings:

I have been following this buckwheat thread, thinking buckwheat must be
just another American native species, about which I have no clue; however,
reading up a few internet sources, I come to realize that buckwheat is
none other than what I have known all along, growing up in Korea, as
*Memil,* [spelling phonetically] whose ground-flour is excellent for two
recipes I recall: *memil mook* and *memil turnover [pancake]*.”

The former looks like tofu [made of soybean], but transparent and wobbly
like jello on a saucer.  Relying on your mastery of chopsticks, you dip a
slimy slice of this into a special soy sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds
and green-onion chops.  What a delicacy!  The latter is a pancake with a
coarse grain, usually prepared for holidays: the New Years Day,
Thanksgiving, and weddings, etc.  Imagine a pancake made of coarse grits
but with buckwheat’s unique flavor.  They both taste excellent to the
native palate, which has been accustomed to its unique taste by wolfing
both down from time immemorial.  [I am inclined to believe that our taste
buds are tailored by our genes; hence, we crave for stinking ethnic stuff,
regardless their nutritional values].  Nonetheless, both dishes are not so
essential to their diet as to lose their sleep over.

As for the bees’ foraging on them, I have never paid much attention while
I grew up, for in Korea beekeepers invariably consider only Acacia [not
psuedo], chestnut, and clovers, among others, to be their major nectar
sources.  I now have learned that the weed I did not pay any attention to
has some special value for American beekeeping.  Come next year, I will
definitely plant some in the fall.

Yoon

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