Edible parts: The lower parts of the leaves can be used in a salad; the young stems can be eaten raw or boiled; the young flowers (cattails) can be roasted. Yellow pollen (appears mid-summer) of the cattail can be added to pancakes for added nutrients. Shake the pollen into a paper bag and use it as a thickener in soups and stews or mix it with flour for some great tasting bread. The root can be dried and pounded to make nutritious flour. Young shoots can be prepared like asparagus but requires longer cooking time to make them tender. Added to soup towards the end of cooking, they retain a refreshing crunchiness. They're superb in stir-fry dishes and excellent in virtually any context.
No, but there's at least two ways to skin one.You can't eat the whole cat?
I remember him. One of the authorities on edible plants in the 60s.Do a search for Euell Gibbons. If anyone would have written a book on eating cattails, it would have been him.
Do a search for Euell Gibbons. If anyone would have written a book on eating cattails, it would have been him.
Ok. I did.
Here's the dude selling a box of GrapeNuts.
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Looking further. Cattail pancakes. I'd eat a cattail pancake before I'd eat GrapeNuts. I've never been that level of hungry, lol.
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"The only thing I could see a cattail benefiting. Is for some fiber to crap out the above listed proteins."
Very true
A waste of time and effort in a survival scenario
Unless you're a pregnant woman. Pine needle tea is an abortifacient. Ok, not all but Ponderosa Pine is one species that can.Have you ever eaten a pine tree? Many parts are edible.
Euell Gibbons