Cattails as Food

Cattails have been called the "supermarket of wild foods."  Certain parts of the plant can be harvested and eaten at any time of the year.

Two words of caution regarding Cattails:

1.  Beware of where you harvest Cattails.  Cattails function in the ecosystem is to absorb toxins from water.  These toxins stay inside the plant, so be careful of where you collect.  Never collect Cattails near railroads or other roadways.

2.  Beware of a toxic, lookalike called a Water Iris.  It is difficult to tell the difference, but to determine, break off a piece of the plant from the root.  Cattail stalks are almost perfectly round, whereas Water Iris is more oddly shaped at the base.  Second, each individual leaf is wrapped completely around the base stalk with a Cattail, and it is more layered with a Water Iris.

Early Spring:  In early spring, young shoots can be eaten raw, or cooked like asparagus (steamed).  Later in spring, the green cob can be eaten like corn on the cob (eaten raw or boiled).  Beware eating these raw, however, if the stalks came from contaminated water sources.

To eat the shoots, peel back the leaves to open the stalk's center.  You eat the part where the stalk becomes white (first 5-6 inches from base).  It's best to seek the younger plants to eat the shoots.  These can be steamed, stir-fried.  You can also leave the stalk whole with the leaves wrapped, and throw the entire stalk onto hot coals, then when ready, peel the outside layers and eat the inside stalk.

To determine the part which is good to eat, if you squeeze the stalk and it makes no noise, thats the best part to eat.

These can also be dehydrated and eaten raw or in salads, etc.

Early Summer:  Pollen can be collected, and either eaten raw or used for flour.  Look for the yellow colored pod which indicates pollen.  The pollen comes of wet, and although shaking it into a plastic bag is a good collection method, do not store pollen in the plastic, as it will rot.  Pollen can be eaten raw or made into flour.  It will take a tremendous number of pollen heads to shake out enough pollen to do anything with, so eating it raw right off the stalk may be the best use of burned calories.

Late Summer:  Horn-shaped sprouts at the top of the root can be eaten (raw or boiled).

Winter:  Roots can be eaten.  To obtain the root, follow the stalk down into the muck, and into the root system, and pull the roots out from underneath.  These roots (called Rhizomes) run horizontal to the plants.  The inside of these roots (when peeled) should be white.  If it is any other color on the inside of the root, DO NOT eat it.  Cooking roots is same as above.  Also, you can make cattail flour from the roots, by scraping away the starch from the fibers, drying the starch, grinding and mixing 50/50 with wheat to make flour or a stew thickener.