Speaking of Japanese trade agreements...

Posted by R. Neal

Wordjunky wonders in comments below if the Japanese might be willing to take back their Kudzu as part of any trade agreements with the South.

Most would agree that would be a pretty good trade. Others, though, make the best of it...




  • Here's a University of Alabama website with everything you ever wanted to know about Kudzu, and here's the official National Park Service site on Kudzu management.
     
  • Then there's Blythewood, SC, home of the Blythewood Kudzu Festival, which is held each year in the IGA parking lot and features a Miss Kudzu pageant, a Kudzu eating contest, a Kudzu landscaping contest, Kudzu cultivation tips, Kudzu recipes, and more.
     
  • Speaking of recipes, here a site devoted to Kudzu Cuisine, with nutritional information and a few sample recipes from their Kudzu Cookbook. There's also a companion website called Kudzu Kingdom with more Kudzu related information, stories, and books. You can even order Kudzu seeds there.
     
  • There's also a popular comic strip inspired by Kudzu, called, well, Kudzu, by North Carolina native Doug Marlette.
     
  • The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries maintains a networked database of online catalogs at participating research libraries across the Southeast that connects approximately 300,000 students and faculty to more than 30 million volumes. It is appropriately named Kudzu.
     
  • And last but not least, here's a website on the medicinal properties of Kudzu, including its use as a cure for hangovers (apparently it "helps the clear yang rise, and the turbid yin descend").

OK, then.