EatTheWeeds: Episode 64: Cattails, Typha
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- Опубліковано 21 січ 2009
- www.eattheweeds.com/cattails-a...
Learn about wild food with Green Deane, this time perhaps the most famous, cattails, or the Great Reed Mace, very nutritious, easy to identify, a life saver.
Some of what you mention is in my weekly newsletter.
I have learned so much from you, always a pleasure. Thank you for all you do. We can't wait for your book release!
Thank you, that is high praise. I watch and like your videos as well.
Many years ago Dick Deuerling wrote a small book called "Florida's Incredible Edibles." A friend of his, Peggy Lantz, edited it and added this and that so they share the by line. They compared notes one day: He had always eaten only the immature female part that becomes the brown tail, and she had only eaten the immature male part that produces pollen. Both are edible when young and green, and later the pollen. (Proceeds from that book goes to a non-profit plant fund.)
Absolutely. They are commonly called roots but are rhizomes. In my cattail article that is all sorted out.
Thank you sir. I've been curious as to when or if you would ever make a video on cattails. I know you could write a book on them but even just this 10 minutes video taught me a lot and here I thought I already knew the important basics. Again, thank you. Your video series are one of the best on You Tube by far.
It's in paragraph two of the article on cattails on my website.
Thank you all...Cattails is one of those resources that we tend to ignore. If you forage, or camp, it is one of those available plants that can accentuate or compliment a camping or a wild foods only outing.
Many of my plants are found in arid environments, cactus, yucca, et cetera. The local Native Plant Society usually has a local edible plant expert. As for books... there is Plants of Texas and the Southwest by Tull. It is not a guide book but more a compendium.
Great web site, Green Deane. Excellent information on cattails, and other stuff. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
The "asparagus" part is the white part I showed you as long as it is not fibrous. That may require some peeling, it may not. As you chew up the plant it gets fibrous. The pollen can be used to augment flour but it does not work well as flour on its own. Starch can be separated from the rhizomes and used like flour, but the process is labor intensive. It is easier to roast it and chew the starch off the fibers, then spit the fiber out.
The starch in the root can be used like flour. It has to be separated from the root fibers. You can read how to do that at my website eattheweeds.
Remember, the starch is with fiber, so the starch has to be leached out, or if boiled or roasted, chewed up but don't eat the fiber. It won't kill you but it can upset the tummy. The raw starch can also so it should always be eaten cooked.
Thanks for the wonderful video.
Hello! I learned a lot more about cattails from u n one setting. But I have learned two other things u did not mention. One is to be added to ur 4 out of 5 cattail survival uses, the cattail fluff can be stuffed into ur clothing, adding insulation (stuff a pillow case for a pillow, sow two sheets together, stuff it with fluff and u a quilt or mattress) the 2nd one is mosquito repellent, when the female part has browned but not yet at fluff stage, light the end, the smoke keeps mosquitoes away. Thank u for teaching me the other things I didn’t know!!!
It is, and can be quite mild as well. I first started eating them as a kid.
wonderful information Green Deane! Now that we are into spring I would like know if you would revisit the cat tail and touch more on the flower portion.
Ok, its a country road so it doesnt get alot of traffic, but enough regulars going down it...howevere on the side of the road there is a bank roughly 10 feet high then a walking pacth, then the pond, so it is elevated off the road a little bit...so it woudl be hard for stuff like rubber from tires or oil kicking up, off the road into the pond, but its not impossible...
I know, and I explain that in various ways on site and in classes. But most common folk won't know the difference and don't care.
great video, very informative. thanks for putting these up.
@Benalr The green, or bottom shoot parts would be low, but the starch would be similar to wheat flour.
Another great episode Green Deane!
I really like how you continue to end with "toodles." Its a friendly and unusual word. Did you know it derives from the french phrase à tout à l'heure (meaning goodbye)?
Keep on doing your thing and thanks for sharing your knowledge with the rest of us.
The road is an issue, depending on how well traveled it is, but the other concerns can be taken care of by cooking it well.
This past June I ate a lot of cattail, and I know I will be eating more in the future.
I have not eaten any roots.
Shoots: Taste like cucumber.
Male flower: boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. Yum. Stripped from the spike and mashed with butter salt and garlic added. Double yum.
Pollen: Made some tasty muffins.
Soup: Chopped shoot boiled in water previously used for boiling male flowers with mashed male flower2, mushrooms, salt pepper and garlic. DEEEEEEEEELICIOUS!!!!
I picked it up from a Hungarian friend some 32 years ago. I knew it has some linguistic basis but not exactly where it came from. Thanks.
Oh yes, very much a concern. Harvest from the best water you can find.
No, bulrush is scirpus. It is, however, called the Greater Reed Mace in England.
Thank you once again for your very informative videos...I think I trust myself to pick out a mature cattail. I still havent found the guts to try much of the other wonderful looking wild edibles I've seen you identify, I keep watching though smile. good day to you.
Thanks.
Hi Dean! I know you're into the wild plants, but those deep fried gator bits are sure good too. I bring back about 15# of them every time I go down to Florida.
Just found a ton of these where I live Thanks for the education Dean, I love your vids. Thanks for all your time and effort. Take care
awesome video! I look forward to grazing in my backyard...
Thanks, cattails are every where here in Texas. If there's water, you can find cattails. Thanks again.
Don't forget, the female portion of the flower is also edible at the same time the male part is, just take it off and boil it.
As for the roots. That is a debate. I got sick eating root starch from a bad pond. But, Steve Brill, for example, forages in New York City's Central Park and the greater area and had for a quarter of a century. He argues there is no agricultural run off in city parks and if chosen wisely they can be safe to forage from. I would take wise to mean ponds above the drainage level, not below.
Thank you sir for sharing your experience with us.
Thank you for your videos!
LOL spell check is a god send.. Another very informative video
Sound to me like you've got a pond of usable cattails.
@slqk2 1) are you sure you have cattails, it could be irises, and 2) one usually doesn't eat cattails raw, except for some tender inner stalk and "teeth" off the main root. Usually one cooks the root or the root starch. The fiber in the root can be quite irritating.
Great video as always...thank you for making this. There are many cattails on my farm and I cant wait to use them :)...
That depends on where your pond is. Slime is not so much an issue as pollution. Slime is natural. Pollution is not. There's little wrong with a healthy pond but I would stay clear of cattails that get drainage from any kind of road or company. One of the two times I was ill from a foraged plant was cattails below a discharging company I did not know about. I ended up praying to the porcelain god for a while.
I ate the inner stalk of the cattail for the first time last year it tastes like a combination between celery and carrots. Pretty good stuff.
Nice. Would be cool to do expanded episodes ... add new (seasonal) data to older footage ... Add different kitchen preps, etc., as YOU just live your life, day-to-day. Might also be fun and cool to do a daily forage-n-prep blog, just around your own dinner plans, throughout the various seasons and across various habitats and ecosystems. Seasonal foraging trips and camp-outs ... Canoe or Kayak "bank" foraging ... Your current format is just fine and you'll never run out of new yummies, tho..
ah yes ive been waiting from this one from you! thank you
you may not be able to eat them, but the leaves are useful for weaving things like baskets.
@namamatherlfth Well... yes but usually it is reduce to a crisp, that is, it is not longer spongy but charcoal.
gc5484, Plants for a Future website says that the "roots are pounded into a jelly-like consistency and applied as a poultice to wounds, cuts, boils, sores, carbuncles, inflammations, burns and scalds", among many other things. Perhaps this's what you heard, gc548?
Very nice Dean, I have a pond with plenty of cattails, one question, should I worry about the slime thats towards the botom? I hard it makes an ok antiseptic, in a pinch, but what about being edible? Just worried about ingesting it...should I be?
Thank You
I've had three gator encounters over the years. I was fishing once and caught a very angry 4-foot alligator which came swimming towards me. I let him have the line. The second time a friend and I was canoeing when we scared a sunning 12-foot alligator and in his fright he nearly landed in the canoe. But the third time. I was shooting video 24 when I saw two tiny baby alligators. I started to drift back in my kayak to take their picture when mama alligator swam under me and surfaced between us.
@Burhan243 When I was young and foolish, I carelessly also ate a few iris shoots mistaking them for cattails. Thankfully I ate only a few and had the same reaction. So like Dean says, FIND LAST YEARS DEAD CATTAILS!
mmm, they look so yummy. I can't wait to try some.
They most certainly do.
It's been a while and I ran out of time... A book could be written about cattails.
They are fairly common, in fresh water.
@whisperingdeath308 Absolutely. While cattails are not as bad as some plants regarding up take of this or that the better and safer the water the better and safer the roots.
@EatTheWeeds yes im pretty sure its cattails, and its the tender inner stalk i tryd...
sounds good Dean, thanks! Its actually a pond on my families property, my father likes me to cut them back a little in spring so they dont clog the outlet of the poind, I woudl much rather eat them they cut them and throw them away...Thanks again!
Five Stars!!!
There are a few possibilities. One is you ate young irises but apparently not a lot or you would be in the hospital. How do you feel? 2) It was something else all together 3) it was cattails and you have an allergy (or 4) the water was polluted.) I've never heard of an allergy to cattails, and they are very mild and do not burn. It sounds like irises. They tend to be flat, where as cattails are much thicker at the base. What part did you eat, and how much?
@NewbieCamper Well, that is an issue and why there is an E for environment in my ITEM system. It takes observation and judgment.
Yes.
These videos rule!
I'm sorry, I did not see this entry. The Tull book is a good compendium of plants but it is not a good guide. There aren't that many for you area. However. Dr. Dan Austin is finishing up an ethnobotanical book for your area so it should be availabe withint the year. Meanwhile I recommedn Edible Plants of North America by Elias and Dykeman (2008 edition, make sure it is the 2008 edition.)
Ok, well the pond is by a road, and there are some houses in the area that do use septic tanks, so I think Ill just be safe and not try them...Ill look eslewhere for a more secluded area...thanks for the response...
Hi there, great vid, I live in a motorhome and don't have a bbq or oven. Can I cook the starchy stems in a pan?
You're welcome. Never heard of a cattail ingredient numbing gums but one never knows. Other plants do have that capacity, Hercules Club comes to mind. Now, can I spell it... Zanthoxylum clava-herculis
very good information
For years, I had it in the back of my mind that cattails were a survival food if the need ever arose. Then I saw a documentary about using natural methods to filter (i.e. clean) water. One of the plants used was cattail because the roots were so good at soaking up heavy metals (I think it was - or some type of pollutant in any case).
So my question is this: In today's reality of so many polluted water areas, how safe is it to keep cattails on the 'wild edibles' list? Thanks in advance!
thank you for this info...great to know.....i live in newengland...and these grow on the side of the road everywhere.....just wondering if i would need to harvest them differently ....thanks
Great tube thanks
i have tull's book, and it is difficult to use as a field guide, what books do you recommend for an edible wilds guide?
@deadheat130 What you describe is normal for cattails.
Thank you
Dean, I was out foraging for mullein and came across some young cattails...in an old sand pit, near a swamp. When I pulled the middle stock and it released...there was a mucous like slime similar to that of an aloe plant, is this normal? I also decided to taste it, but spit it out, just in case....anyhow it tasted similar to cucumber, would you describe the taste along that line? Thanks in advance, love your videos, keep up the good work.
I was wondering when you pull up a cat tail center from under water should you clean the water off so you don't ingest swamp water? Thanks for your videos
I've got no problem with dining on alligator... but it is always a bit swampy... and of course I would rather eat it than it eat me.
@ehermes83 Leave them in the ground.
Hi Deane, Cattails are very prevalent in many areas here in south texas. my question is: Is the water the cattails are in an issue when it comes to eating the roots?
hello Deane.. i have a problem when im eating raw cattails( that part at 01:30 ) they give me an itchy, irritated feeling in the back of my throat for hours... havent tryd them cokked yet... but is some people allergic to raw cattails.. ?
Are there any methods for storing the roots?
i was reading somewhere that the natives would make flour from cat tails do you know which part?
today i found some cat tails in the creek by my home, the stalks were alright i'm nto realy a vedgtable person, however the roots i dident manage to cook thoroly yet still taisted wonderful, if you can find cat tails in a clean watterway, i do sugjest you try them, thank you for the vid, otherwise i probly never would have seen them
Does it have a fluffy/feathery sort of seed head on top? Can grow up to 8ish feet tall? If so, then it is Phragmites australis. Also called Common Reed.
Can you eat the root stalks when the male part is brown?
No, it is just a convenient way to explain them.
@123gfitzy That's big debate. Some say no, some say yes. Read the jury is out.
A question, how do you keep it from tasting like foetid swamp water?
Honestly, both times I've tried eating anything near or below ground level n this plant, I may as well have been eating the mud. The taste is the same.
+Ima Pseudonym That is why roasting the rhizome is a good way to go.
I saw on survivorman he ate the root and it was almost like a potatoe in shape. It was very bitter and made him I'll. What did he do wrong?
They taste more like cattail than spaghetti, but the term works for me.
When I first tried it, I got conflicting information, with some sources saying the female flower was edible and others saying it was not, so I did not eat them.
I did not eat any roots, because I am in a city without access to a clean area, and proceeded under the assumption that pollutants would be most concentrated in the roots.
Is that a fair assumption?
Deane, any idea how many calories a fresh serving of cattails would provide?
Do cattail roots look the same and can we do all of the same things with them in the Winter, when they are all dried up?
The general answer is yes. The roots don't usually "dry" in the winter as they are in water.
So, ice in Wisconsin 😁 Thanks for the reply. Love your videos!
do cattails draw up heavy metals like lead?
Tried and True.
Not a bad idea.
I'm guessing cooking the roots breaks the starch down into sugars
Is Iris toxic?
We have these things growing in the ditches of Ontario. They grow in swamps, and destroy the wetlands. Do you know what they are, and can they be used in any way?