We live in a time of abundant food, easily found at the grocery store, a big-box retailer, or a restaurant. Some people prefer natural food stores, farmers markets, or their very own gardens. A few stalwart purists even pursue wild foods, foraged from nature.
Today, we’re taking a look at one of the best edible wild plants ever known: the cattail.
Cattails are everywhere—growing in prairie potholes, along the shores of ponds and lakes, and even in roadside ditches. Incredible as it may sound, almost all parts of the cattail plant are edible.
In spring, the new shoots, arising from last year’s decayed reeds, are dormant sprouts. If you pull the stem, it will break off at ground level. Cut off the tender inner core of the white stem base, wash it, and you can eat it raw—or boil it like asparagus. This cattail portion is tasty from May through June.
By June, a sausage-shaped spike develops at the cattail’s top. The male portion of this bloom spike, when green, can be cut free, boiled, and eaten—like corn on the cob, with butter and salt.
You can also gather the golden pollen from the male bloom. After drying and sifting, the pollen can be added to soup or mixed with flour to cook in bread or pancakes.
The underground roots can be eaten any time of year, but they take work to harvest. You’ll need to dig up the rope-like rhizome root-stems, peel off the outer covering, and grind the parts into flour.
Also, the lump where the roots meet the stem can be boiled or roasted in any season—summer, winter, autumn, or spring.
It was on this date in 1970 that the Bismarck Tribune published a fascinating cattail story, telling how Don Klingensmith, who lived in Mandan, got “lots of energy” from the cattail soup he made from the roots of plants he harvested near his home.
A word of caution: Never gather cattails near roads, as the plant collects auto exhaust pollutants, along with grit and dirt.
Maybe this is the year to try some wild plants in your diet. Cattails, known as the “Supermarket of the Swamps,” are especially easy to identify and offer several wild culinary delights.
Dakota Datebook written by Steve Hoffbeck, retired MSUM History Professor
Sources:
- Hal Simons, “Cattail Roots Give Him Lots of Energy,” Bismarck Tribune, May 9, 1970, p. 14.
- “Don Klingensmith,” obituary, Morton County and Mandan News, November 12, 1992, p. 14.
- Glenn Tornell, “Common Cattail Plants Remain Largely Unused,” Fargo Forum, June 26, 1988, p. D5.
- Robert Page Lincoln, “Cat-Tail Roots,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 10, 1932, p. 21.
- Steve Aakre, “A Swamp Can Be A Supermarket,” Fargo Forum, August 6, 1978, p. 12C.
- Kimberlie Davidson, “Hers is a Wild Way,” Duluth News Tribune, September 27, 1978, p. 1B.
- Liz Fedor, “Wild Foods,” St. Cloud Times, July 3, 1979, p. 6.
- John Shuttleworth, Mighty Menus; The Mother Earth News,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 22, 1975, p. 14F.
- Sarah Hopkins, “Wild Stuff,” Kalamazoo Gazette, April 8, 1995, p. D3.
- Matthew Alfs, Edible & Medicinal Wild Plants of the Midwest (St. Paul: MHS Press, 2020), p. 72-74.
- Thomas S. Elias & Peter A. Dykeman, Edible Wild Plants (N.Y.: Sterling, 1982), p. 69.
