Alaskan Tinfoil (skunk cabbage)

When strolling through the woods one day in spring and glancing off to the more swampy area you may notice these rather large leaves a foot or more wide. Your curiosity gets the best of you and upon closer examination when you get a whiff of this monster you will scratch your head and think, must be a skunk nearby. Well,,,literally under foot.
On the last rainy (really rainy) wild edible walk at the state park, one of the kids asked why we had them. John said they were his umbrellas. They did make cute hats that keep the rain off. Then he went on to say that the Alaskan call it "Alaskan tinfoil". They use it instead of tinfoil when cooking their "hobo dinners."* You would think it would burn up before the job was done or give it a bad taste?
Well, we had two industrious young men on the hike that decided to test out the theory and emailed us with their results.
He wrote: "It worked. We tried it on Sunday and I didn't taste anything weird but you have to make sure that you flip it so the whole outside of the cabbage is black and maybe put some water in the cabbage wrap so the fish gets cooked all the way."

* Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, meat/fish, seasoning, etc. wrapped in tinfoil and put on coals or grill to cook.

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