Mackensy Lunsford

mlunsford@citizen-times.com

The first time David Cozzo, an ethnobotanist specializing in medicinal plants, saw kudzu, he was on a back road driving through the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

Kudzu-choked trees loomed out of the late-dusk darkness like shaggy ghosts, tall as buildings. “I’m looking at the side of the road and it looked like giants and dinosaurs," Cozzo recalled. "I was terrified, but impressed.”

In the United States, kudzu is primarily a terrifying pest, with tenacious, man-sized roots and the potential to grow a foot overnight. But some people are learning to live with its more impressive qualities, which include a surprising array of medicinal and culinary benefits.

Introduced to the U.S. at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in the late 1800s, kudzu was once known as the "Savior of the South."

Farmers were paid to plant the nitrogen-fixing vine to fix the soil and curb erosion from the '30s through the '50s, particularly where Cozzo found it swallowing entire stands of trees. Excessive planting of cotton and peanuts decimated the vast majority of the region's topsoil. "If it wasn’t for exotic invasives, the Piedmont wouldn’t have much growing in it," said Cozzo.

But Cozzo's vision of shaggy green dinosaurs underscores the way the vine has menaced the South. “It’s a monster,” said Cozzo. "But there’s no bad plants, there’s just plants that get where you don’t want them to be."

An informal economy

Cozzo earned a master's degree in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State in Boone, where he said the locals used to eke out a living in the woods, digging ginseng root, having kids pick red clover blossoms and scoring a couple pennies a pound for it.

“People didn't have 9-5 jobs," he said. "You picked up a little cash money when you could and foraged when you didn’t. You learned to live in your environment.”

A similarly informal economy still survives in these hills. It's part of what's inspired Justin Holt, with local permaculture designer Zev Friedman, to start the Kudzu Camp, a program of The School of Integrated Living.

The four-day workshop teaches skills like how to process kudzu roots, extracting the edible and medicinal starch known as "kuzu" to the Japanese. "We're asking, 'What does the plant have to teach us?'," Holt said.

Quite a bit, apparently. Asian cultures eat the edible shoots and tender leaves, and use the starchy root as a thickener or to make porridge.

The Japanese use the young vines to weave silky kimonos, while its starch is prized in macrobiotic cooking for its alkalinity. "If I have indigestion, kudzu is one of the first things I go for," Holt said.

It's also a known cure for alcoholism, its extracts included in a number of over-the-counter remedies. BBC reported that, in a trial of 17 heavy-drinking American men, kudzu extract helped cut alcohol consumption between 34 and 57 percent.

Holt has sold the root for about $40 per pound to acupuncturists, who revere it as a medicinal herb. That's hardly worth the amount of effort it takes to harvest the behemoth root systems, however. "We have a lot to learn about how people can possibly make a profit on making kudzu root starch commercially available," he said.

While most shake their fists at the invasive, which can grow fast and tall enough to swallow entire buildings given enough time, Holt has quite the opposite view. "This is the plant, in a changing climate, of our future. Once again, we may be looking at kudzu as the savior of the South."

The savior of the South?

It's hard to see how kudzu could be anything but a persistent pest. Its roots can spread laterally up to 50 feet, and as high as 100 feet. Mature plants have a fleshy taproot that can claw 6 to 12 feet deep into the soil and weigh up to 200 pounds.

When Cozzo's wife's family was trying to clear a farm, they hauled roots out of the land "big as Arnold Schwarzenegger's thigh," he said. "There are good qualities to kudzu, it’s just hard to harvest a 200-pound root out of a hillside.”

A single root can generate 30 vines, each of which can establish new plants where it contacts the soil. And the sheer speed at which it grows is indeed terrifying and impressive. "It'll grow 12-13 inches in a night, and if you turn your head it’s there," Cozzo said.

Still, Cozzo said research supports kudzu as a powerful anti-diabetic, cardio-protective, anti-inflammatory, and even anti-Parkinsons and anti-Alzheimer's.

All that, and the flowers make a decent jam with a bit of a grape-jelly flavor. And Cozzo said an old-timer once told him it's "better than Viagra," a claim he neither disputed nor denied.

Tastes like batter

But can kudzu escape its reputation as the scourge of the South? Cozzo demurred. “I work in a field where there’s a lot of people looking into natural products, and they’re all supposed to save the South.”

The potential is there, he noted. "But if it'll grow up a mountainside, grow up a tree, how do you contain something like that?"

The answer might be hidden in an industry already profiting from kudzu.

Mountain Goatscapes is a Barnardsville-based business specializing in landscaping via a herd of up to 20 tiny, hungry goats. And goats, said Megan Naylor, co-owner of Mountain Goatscapes with her with fiancé William Wallace, are particularly hungry for kudzu.

They love the flavor of the plant and its flowers, and it's a good thing; killing kudzu represents about 60 percent of Mountain Goatscapes' business. "The other half is people who really want to have some goats in their front yard," Naylor quipped.

But kudzu's no joke. The work of the goats has revealed, on one property alone, cars, tractors, farm equipment, even a long lost outbuilding.

"There are all kinds of treasures that get lost under that," said Naylor, who added that property owners are often surprised "and sometimes a little scared" after the kudzu is cleared.

But beyond their property-clearing talents, Naylor claims goats have the power to eventually eliminate kudzu altogether.

Goats stunt the plants' growth more than machinery can, she said. "And in the third or fourth year, the plant stops trying to grow if it’s done consistently and the right time of year."

But it would take a massive team of goats to clear the earth of kudzu. For now, Holt suggests, if you can't beat it, eat it. "Here's this amazing food and medicine that's all around us, and it's there waiting to be perceived for what it is," he said.

Cozzo remains skeptical and referenced the experience of James A. Duke, an American botanist who tried to batter and fry kudzu leaves after unearthing an old recipe. "And he said they tasted great," Cozzo recalled. "Just like fried batter."

Answer Man: Kudzu curtails alcohol cravings? And other benefits

IF YOU GO

What: Kudzu Camp with Zev Friedman and Justin Holt. School of Integrated Living offers the course in partnership with Plants and Healers International. This weekend workshop explores how to harness kudzu's explosive growth for human and ecological gain.

When: March 16-19

Where: Sylva. Contact zev@schoolofintegratedliving.org for more information and to register.

Cost: By donation.