Fróðskaparrit

						50

FIELD HORSETAIL (EQUISETUMARVENSE) AS A FOOD PLANT

bile are used for cleansing the surface of the

nails and for cleansing the utensils (Islam,

1983: 863).

Within biodynamic vegetable gardening

in Sweden E. arvense is used as a kind of

biocide. Field horsetail are put in a bucket

of water, where it yields silica. Vegetables

sprayed with this siliceous water are said to

get stronger resistance against fungus

(Nilsson, 1975: 96). Also E. sylvaticum is

recommended as a biodynamic biocide

(Ingmanson 1996: 249).

In Norway E. arvense was used as a ca-

lender sign. When the stem had five seg-

ments the sheep could be fleeced and when

it had seven segments it was time to take

out the cattle (Høeg, 1974: 343).

Horsetails as food

In a newly published popular book by a

Swedish ethnobotanist, the use of field

horsetail as a food plant among North

American Indians is mentioned (Kállman,

1997: 70). Both the tubers and the spring

shoots were regarded as edible. Ethnob-

otanical descriptions from the northern

Western Hemisphere affirm its use among

Indians, Inuits, and settlers in Alaska,

Canada and U.S. We can demonstrate this

with some evidence from the literature.

That the spikes can be prepared like as-

paragus is mentioned in many handbooks

(e.g. Hutchens, 1991: 157). In the Rocky

Montains the stems of E. arvense were

dried, ground and used as mush or thicken-

ing powder (May, 1978: 502). From the

Alaskan Inuit, Oswalt (1957: 22) reports

that the tubers were »... ground up while

green and mixed into agu'tuk. They may

also be mixed with fish eggs and made into

a soup«. Coast Salish used the young

shoots during spring both raw and boiled

(Turner and Bell, 1971: 68). We have evi-

dence as far south as from the Kiowa

Apaches in New Mexico who boiled the

base of E. arvense as food (Uphof, 1968:

201).

Other species of Equisetum have been

utilized as food plants as well in North

America. The Bois Fort Ojibwa, for exam-

ple, used the tubers of common horsetail

(E. pratense), a food that was available

throughout the summer months (Black,

1980: 71). The Hopi Indians dried and

ground the stem of E. laevigatum and

mixed it with maize meal and made a mush

used in food and ceremonial bread

(Fewkes, 1896: 17). The pollen cones of E.

telmateia was regarded juicy and sweet by

Indians in Washington. Also the cooked

rhizomes were consumed by e.g. Cowlitz

Indians (Turner and Bell, 1971; May, 1978:

502).

Kállman (1997) is obviously not aware

of its traditional use in Scandinavia and

other parts of Eurasia. The quoted use of

the tubers of the horsetail as food on the

Faroe Islands above, is attested by other

sources with first-hand knowledge about

the life and habits of the Faroe Islanders as

well. Svabo (1959: 153) writes in his de-

scription from the 1780s of local plants that

the tubers were called kannubjølla and

were consumed by the islanders. The Dan-

ish botanist Rostrup (1870: 72), who con-

ducted botanical fíeld work on the islands

in 1867, recorded its use as an esteemed

food  plant.   The  Faroese  botanist  Ras-