Some mention of castor oil I read online a couple of days ago started me thinking about my childhood. Didn't my mom give us castor oil for some reason? I vaguely remembered a dark bottle of syrup with a red and white label. But nothing listed for the uses of castor oil seemed right.
Then I found this vintage picture of Dr. Fletcher's Castoria. That was it and there on the box was what it was used for. Confirming what I remembered, it was a laxative. Oh how I hated taking it. It's been too many decades since then for me to remember the taste, but old ads say it had a prune flavor or anise. The new version says it has the flavor of root beer.
I probably gave castoria to my children if they needed it, but I don't recall their reaction to the flavor.
At some point during my gardening years I wanted to plant some castor beans as an ornamental. I had seen them in someone else's garden and thought they were very attractive.
I believe it was when we lived in the little house and I think I had already obtained some seeds but my mom warned me about planting them if there were children around because the seeds were poisonous.
I didn't plant them, but I do remember having the seeds around for a long time, stored in a glass jar.
Which brings up a whole new 'jar of beans'. (Definitely a mash-up of idioms - can of worms, hill of beans.) How long do dried beans keep? My mom shelled and saved these for me, maybe even planted and raised them for me because I wanted to try black beans. That's her handwriting on the 'label'. She has been gone 19 years and quit gardening at least four or five years before that, so these beans have to be around 25 years old. They've been setting on a shelf in the garage since we moved here in 2008. One website tells me dried beans will remain edible for 25 to 30 years. One of these days, maybe today, I'm going to try cooking a few to see.
But before I do, I double checked what castor beans look like.
I wouldn't want to poison us. 😅
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