Handle and/or Bite With Extreme Caution

Today we take an ever-so-cautious peek into the mailbag.  Here's what I found:

TUBERS: What would HTF suggest someone do with such things.  I have read that they are edible - but have found no recipes or claims that anyone has attempted to eat them.  I have also read that they can be stored and propagated the coming year. 

I am afraid that if I were to re-plant even one of them, that our neighborhood would be taken over.  The pictures do no justice. They are humungo! I wonder if they could be the next best thing in emergency preparedness, food storage or feeding the hungry children of the world while beautifying our planet at the same time.

Hope all is well on your side of the pond my dear frog friend.

- Becca

I'm always one with my radar turned on looking for funny words, and "tubers" is a clear-cut winner.  It is also multi-functional (kinda like the printer is supposed to be here at work, but as far as I can tell the Xerox's only function is to JAM).  For instance, it's a perfect insult: "Brandon, you're such a freakin' TUBER."  It's a term of endearment, "Ah, that baby is cute little TUBER."  OR, as is more often the case, it's a strong substitute for a swear word: (upon stubbing my pinky toe on the bed frame for the thousandth time) - "OH TUBER!!!"

Now, back to the question, which was about gnomes I think.  Oh, no, it was about tubers.  This form of vegetation, while it may be edible in the same way that shoe boxes are edible, is actually quite dangerous.  You can chop 'em up, but they won't stop growing under most conditions.  In fact, a few hundred years ago, a pirate, who I will call Captain Tuber (mostly because that would be a good name for a rock band) sailed into a tiny island in the very South Pacific called "Speck."  He had plundered (an excellent word as well) a jar of some type of vegetable from a mother in Malaysia.  He took a bite of it, and it was so HORRIFIC, that he dug a hole in the little island and buried the thing.  Well, the tuber grew, a lot, and that island now has a new name.  Most folks call it Australia.

So yeah, I guess tubers could be food storage and feed hungry children, but there's a reason you couldn't find any recipes.  That pirate was the last known human to take a bite of one.  A little known fact is that the ultimate weapon from the military isn't "NUCLEAR" it's "TUBULAR."  This means that if a country is really throwing down with us, we'll sneak some guys in there with garden gloves, bulletproof aprons, and one of those miniature shovels, and we'll plant 2 or 3 of those things.  It's a Weapon of Mass Vegetation.

Anyway, thanks for the great question, Becca.  I hope you enjoyed my photo of an actual Tuber.