An anecdote of great man

Benevolent herbarium of edible grasses

 

President Kim Il Sung visited a unit of the north Korean People’s Army to convene an emergency meeting with commanding officers on one summer day in Juche 41 (1952) when the war was at its height on the Korean Peninsula. The agenda of the meeting was the problem related to the logistic supply for the soldiers.

Acquainting himself with insufficient diet of servicemen, the President told the commanding officers to make more side dishes for them by picking edible grasses.

The next morning he climbed up a mountain together with an official and picked wild edible greens in defiance of his clothes getting wet with dew.

After he picked a good quantity of edible greens, he descended the mountain, saying to an official that he had told the commanding officers to provide side-dishes with edible greens to soldiers and he felt uneasy because the soldiers may pick inedible greens unable to distinguish edible greens from inedible greens.

That day he made a herbarium by inserting species of wild greens in the leaves of a big book like a photo album. Then he wrote in detail the names of wild greens and the place where they grow and specific features for distinguishing them from poisonous herb.

He sent the herbarium to soldiers of the unit whom he met the day before.