CATTAILS



I don't think there is another wild plant that is as useful for food as the cattail. Every part of the plant is edible, at one time of the year or another. Their only real drawback - and it can be a major one - is that they live in or near water, and you're going to get muddy collecting them.

I think the best part of the plants are the young shoots, collected usually in early spring before the flower forms (although you can find young shoots in midsummer, and sometimes even later). You can peel them and add them raw to salads or sandwiches, use them in stir-fry dishes, or add them to soups and stews late enough so they don't lose their crunchiness.

Try to harvest the shoots on a dry day, so you don't sink too deep in the mud. Choose the largest shoots that haven't begun to flower, and use both hands to separate the outer leaves from the core. Grab the shoots as close to the base as you can, and pull. Cut off the tough upper parts with a knife, and take them home.

At home, peel off the outermost layers until you get to the inner core, which is soft enough to pinch through with your thumb nail. (You'll have to do more peeling near the top.) The proportion of food to waste is best just before the flower head forms.



The flower head itself is in two parts. The upper part is the male part of the flower, the lower part the female. While the flower is still immature and green, you can cut off the male portion, boil for a few minutes, spread butter on it, and eat it like corn on the cob.

Beginning around late spring or early summer, the male flowers open and become covered with the yellow pollen you see in the photo above. If you're one of those people who pay outrageous prices for capsules of bee pollen in health food stores, you're going to save a lot of money - this pollen is way better tasting and more nutritious than the expensive bee pollen.

Try to collect the pollen on a day when the winds are calm. Bend the pollen-covered flower over into a paper sack, close the sack shut lightly so the pollen doesn't blow away, and shake gently. it's time-consuming, but you can collect a bunch of it this way. Sift to remove the trash. It won't help you're bread to rise, but you can use it to bake cooking, muffins, pancakes, or waffles. You can extend you're supply of flour by mixing it about one part of cattail pollen to two or three parts of wheat flour. Be sure the pollen is dry before storing it.



From fall to early spring, the rhizomes store food. They look nasty when you first dig them up, but don't worry. Peel off the tough outer layers and cook like a potato.

You can also use the starchy rhizomes to make a flour. After peeling them, slice them thinly, but them in cold water, and mash them up (a potato masher works well for this). Wait bout an hour for the starch to settle, remove the fibers, pour off the water, and repeat once or twice. Once it's dry, you'll have a white flour that you can use as is, or add to your existing stock of flour.

The buds of the following year's shoots are also edible. Collected before they break through to the surface, they can be peeled, boiled for a couple minutes, and pickled in hot vinegar. tasty, but as far as I'm concerned, really too much work to make it worthwhile.

Onward and upward,
airforce