Edible Plants - Cattail

Cattails, would you believe it?

Novya gave Logan and I our second edible plant lesson.

She tried to put this lesson off until she could get a field trip to a place where cattails grow.  However, the weather got to cold and wet.  Nana didn't want her tramping through the mud to get to the plants.


I had no idea that the cattail is edible.  Except for the rhizome, it seems to be most useful as food during the late spring.  Some writers say it was a staple of the American Indians because of its abundance.

The pollen has only a short time in the spring in which it can be gathered.  It is very popular and expensive at health food stores, in capsule form. It is a source of minerals, enzymes, protein and energy.  It can also be used as a flour substitute and/or thickener.

The sticky jelly you find as you gather stalks should be scraped off and saved for thickening soups in an okra-like fashion.

The rhizome is usually harvested from late fall to early spring.  The starch from it can be made into flour. The rhizome can also be cooked or eaten raw. 

The leaf bases can be eaten, cooked or raw in late spring.  They can be eaten in the early spring, but there isn't much to them and they have a terrible bitter flavor then.  However, they would serve as food if you were starving.
  The green flower spike can be boiled or steamed and eaten like corn on the cob in late spring.  Unlike corn it is very dry and should be served with a sauce of some kind.


In spring the shoots have a tender sweet inside that is edible raw or cooked.  

Seeds once they are separated from the fluff can be eaten as seeds or ground into flour like the dandelion seeds.

There are sites on-line with recipes using cattail if you are interested in trying them.

Cattail plants have many uses other than for eating. But, at this time we are only looking at them as a source of food.