Eating the red soil of Rainbow Island | Hacker News Reader

Eating the red soil of Rainbow Island

atlasobscura.com

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/13/us/southern-practice-of-e...

I've known plenty of southern black women who love, or remember loving, eating red dirt. I don't know any under 75, though.

Eating kaolin isn't common but in Georgia you can still find it for sale in local gas stations. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicin...

You can buy Georgia kaolin and other soil and minerals intended for eating on Amazon.[1] Plenty of satisfied reviewers!

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Grandmas-White-Dirt-Georgia-Kaolin/dp...

Reminiscent of Galettes in Haiti, which is still common practice.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_cookie

Interestingly they note:

> traditionally used as a dietary supplement for pregnant women and children.

It seems like there is some are a lot of these mud eating practices that are associated more often with women. I wonder if there is some connection there with iron deficiency or something(total guess, but I know from experience that women tend more often to be iron deficient).

Relatedly, pica (the eating of non-nutritious stuff characterized as a disorder) is most prevalent in pregnant women.

That was very interesting, in the Times article they note that they don't eat it to get any minerals or other nutrients, which was my first thought. Do you have any idea why they do it?

I hope not for lack of other options.

The last person I met who ate it (whose eyes almost rolled back in her head recalling how much she loved it) was an accountant who made a better living than I did.

The taste.

That just seems very very strange to me, having never eaten dirt myself or known anyone who has.

Ever met a toddler? I would wager you ate a handful in your formative years on at least one occasion.

What do you consider table salt? That’s generally just minimally processed “soil” that was likely sitting around for millions of years until people decided it was tasty and dug it up.

Southern red dirt is mostly clay.

Yes, it's specific dirt, not just any dirt.

Ever chew gum?

There's some "edible clay" on Amazon ...

It seems like in this case the addition of the dirt might add some iron to their diet.

> Mehravari confirms that gelak “contains several different iron chemicals. It is possible that for those who are iron-deficient, eating the sauce will help increase the required level of iron in the body.”

I remember reading another article years ago about scientists trying to give some people a "lucky" iron fish to add to their pots while cooking rice to add extra iron, since the cookware was no long iron based.

I thought this was a really interesting article, but calling gelak "the edible red earth" seems a bit of a misnomer. Lots of things could be considered "edible" then if you can put them in your mouth and swallow, and they don't kill you. Sounds like sooragh is basically just a fermented fish sauce, very similar to ancient Roman garum, and the soil just dyes it a pretty red (which, in fairness, the article points out).

That does strike me as the definition of edible, agreed. What's the misnomer? Red? Earth?

"Edible dye" is a common thing to say; that's what this is, happens to be a local dirt. Lac is another thing I'd call edible, rather than, say, delicious. There are a few.

Because the article makes it sound like there is something special about this red earth that makes it edible:

> But only one soil, gelak, is edible and a critical ingredient in the island’s local cuisine.

Where my guess is pretty much all the soil is "edible", it just doesn't have the pretty dyeing properties that gelak does.

Having a pleasant taste is significantly stricter than simply non toxic. Eating dirt or clay can provide missing minerals in peoples diets.

Most notably most salt is arguably just another type of processed soil.

I’m confident you could technically eat a lot of things. We all eat some types of rocks after all.

What differentiates edibles from non-edibles is only taste, outcome (good or bad for you), and whether anyone tried it first. I consider jellyfishes edible but probably most people never considered them as such.

Chinese people eat jellyfish so that's at least a billion people.

I wonder if this is where the "red clay clods" from Stuart Smith's Rivers of Light came from, since pretty much anything in that game seems to be based on ancient history and/or mythology.

The Chinese make tofu using Plaster of Paris harvested from streams.

Wonder if there are many other old school dirt eating recipes.

Ever heard of burtons water salts? They’re used in brewing and give water that characteristic San pellegrino taste. It’s basically gypsum - kinda tastes like drywall dust. But, if you mix it with a tiny bit of baking soda and add a bit to seltzer, it tastes like mineral water.

JFYI, for years (now it is rare) in Italy were in common use Idrolitina/Frizzina/Cristallina, which were a mix of chemicals ( sodium bicarbonate ( E500 ), malic acid (E296) and tartaric acid (E334)) to make (tap or well) water sparkling, but - besides the little bubbles they gave a typical taste.

Italian Wikipedia (not too bad via translator):

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idrolitina

https://it-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Idrolitina?_x...

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