Kudzu chips aren’t half bad. After hearing of the plant from a friend and checking it out online (good luck separating fact from fiction on the Internet), I decided to give it a try. I collected only the small, tender, new leaves from some vines swallowing up the trees in a suburban stream valley down the street, washed and dried them, then dredged them in salted flour and dropped them in a pan of hot canola oil. They were done almost as soon as they hit the pan and tasted faintly of cucumber. You can argue that shavings from a cinder block, similarly prepared, would taste good, and you’d be right.

The leaves are reputed to be high in vitamins A and C, protein, and calcium. The Japanese make tea pastries using the root flour. You can buy kudzu herbal remedies purported to reduce hangovers, control diarrhea and osteoporosis, even reduce hot flashes in menopausal women. Kudzu was first brought to this country in the 19th century as a forage crop. Then it was touted as a good way to stop soil erosion. Then it consumed most of the southeastern United States. If you really want to tick off a Southerner, tell him you planted some kudzu. If you want to know why, take a look at photographer Jack Anthony’s images of houses eaten alive by the stuff at  www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/houses.html.

I’m not taking a stand one way or another on kudzu. Afterward, however, I took a 15-minute nap and woke with one arm curled around a chair leg in the next room...