What is the strangest old timey vegetable you have eaten

[Loyalist Dave]

cattail sprouts

Alas, cattail in may area is abundant, but is set up mostly in water collection and drainage ponds....good for the creeks as the cattails suck up the nitrates from the suburbanite lawns...bad as a food source as the lawn treatments also use weed killers that are cancer causing and are also sucked up by the cattails.

We get a lot of chickory here, but mostly along roadways, and chemical road treatments plus leakage from car motors = not a good source. I've once gotten some from a field with permission, but one needs to double check, as sometimes the farmers are unsure which field their bull is using at the time.

LD

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Cattail root, Skunk Cabbage, Dewberries, Wild Plums, Dandelion Greens, Beet Greens (boiled with salt pork), Gooseberries, Pine Nuts, Tree nuts of several varieties,
Camas Root, Prickly Pears.

Do you mean Cannas' root as in Canna lilies. I read that in some parts of the world, they are cultivated for food for humans and livestock. What did they taste like? We grow them in flower beds and dig them up every fall. Always have 4 or 5 times what was planted in spring. Never tasted them though.

I did years ago, have a patch of Jerusalem artichokes. Grew them as a favor for my G_Grandfather who loved them. I tried several different ways of making them. None were good and all required beano.

Oddly, I like Beets and turnips, wife loves parsnips, which aren't too common around here. But she makes them in with a brown sugar maple glaze that anybody would like.,

At a meeting a guy trying to do a demonstration about common ideas asked me to name a root vegetable. Of course I guess I do not think like other folks. with no hesitation, I answered with the first root vegetable that popped into my mind, "Rutabaga" The crowd burst out laughing and the speaker was so befuddled that he lost his thoughts and had to be reminded what he was doing. (Of course he was looking for and expected the word carrot) So a few months later when it was my turn to instruct the crowd, I gave them a true false quiz about the history, parentage and events surrounding the Rutabaga. (The farmers market in Syracuse NY has a Rutabaga bowling contest every December. A rutabaga is a natural cross between a cabbage and a turnip and has been known to gardeners for at least 400 years..)

 

[Atticus69]

My old buddy George could go in the woods and live a week on nothing but picked greens and morels.
If you look at the old foxfire book most of the "Weeds" folks spray top get removed are edible.
Lamb's quarter, purslane, dock, nettles, dandelion to name a few.

Dock and peeled thistle stem in chicken bone broth makes a mighty fine soup!

 

[Tb54]

I’ve ate thistle (almost as good as porkypine), purslane, Cattail, (told a girl I knew once I’d ate cattail, she said, “...noooh, the cartilage too?”) mullein, teasle, (make tea from the root), pine/fir needle tea, dandelion, stinging nettle, gonna try horsetail as soon as I can find some, got plenty mallow in the garden so I’ll try that...gotta be a reason I can’t kill it, grass, sweet clover,... kinda sucks to have an appetite like mine sometimes. Oh, and the oddest one...Brussels sprouts, tried them once, even though they look like road apples.

 

[Sean Adams]

Rutabagas are great. The Vermont state vegetable in the Gilfeather Turnip , which is a half-rutabaga, half-turnip hybrid that was developed by John Gilfeather, hence the name. I have grown them, and are harvested after the first hard frost. It's white instead of yellow and it doesn't have that little back-of-the-throat bite that normal turnips have — they're sweet and creamy."

 

[Atticus69]

Do you mean Cannas' root as in Canna lilies. I read that in some parts of the world, they are cultivated for food for humans and livestock. What did they taste like? We grow them in flower beds and dig them up every fall. Always have 4 or 5 times what was planted in spring. Never tasted them though.

I did years ago, have a patch of Jerusalem artichokes. Grew them as a favor for my G_Grandfather who loved them. I tried several different ways of making them. None were good and all required beano.

Oddly, I like Beets and turnips, wife loves parsnips, which aren't too common around here. But she makes them in with a brown sugar maple glaze that anybody would like.,

At a meeting a guy trying to do a demonstration about common ideas asked me to name a root vegetable. Of course I guess I do not think like other folks. with no hesitation, I answered with the first root vegetable that popped into my mind, "Rutabaga" The crowd burst out laughing and the speaker was so befuddled that he lost his thoughts and had to be reminded what he was doing. (Of course he was looking for and expected the word carrot) So a few months later when it was my turn to instruct the crowd, I gave them a true false quiz about the history, parentage and events surrounding the Rutabaga. (The farmers market in Syracuse NY has a Rutabaga bowling contest every December. A rutabaga is a natural cross between a cabbage and a turnip and has been known to gardeners for at least 400 years..)

I think he meant "cammas" as he wrote. Cammas root was a mainstay of the Nez Perce diet in Idaho. They are a purple flower and should only be harvested when in bloom lest you inadvertantly harvest their near look alike, the "death cammas" which has a white flower but is otherwise very similar in appearance. It is called death cammas because that is what happens to you if you eat it.

 

[Billy Boy]

Labrador tea, made from the leaves of purple or white swamp laurel, and little red mushrooms that grow in the sandy ground in Norway or jack pine woods. Can only eat them if they are about an inch tall, bigger, and they make your lips and tongue numb, must have rubbed some on my head when I was a child....

 

[tbob38]

I think he meant "cammas" as he wrote. Cammas root was a mainstay of the Nez Perce diet in Idaho. They are a purple flower and should only be harvested when in bloom lest you inadvertantly harvest their near look alike, the "death cammas" which has a white flower but is otherwise very similar in appearance. It is called death cammas because that is what happens to you if you eat it.

Near where we used to live they found cammas ovens that were 3500 years old. Held up the construction of a newsprint mill for a while.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

My puffball as harvested and cut for Saute' in butter.

 

[poker]

Nice puffball Tom, I’ve picked them often, sometimes slice and dry them in a dehydrator, other times just fry some up in butter. Funny thing, they taste just like butter then....

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Nice puffball Tom, I’ve picked them often, sometimes slice and dry them in a dehydrator, other times just fry some up in butter. Funny thing, they taste just like butter then....

My wife says the same about the butter taste. Guess they don't have much taste on their own. Puff balls are the only wild mushroom I dare eat. Tried to grow shitake once on a purchased log that had been inoculated. I think we maybe got three worth eating...

 

[Richard Buckhorn]

Ate skunk cabbage once. Had bad breath for awhile.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Yep. Cammas. (Never said I could spell!)

 

[pnw]

The voyage of discovery, Lewis and Clark, had an interesting cammas experience, might want to read the journals

 

[user 31257]

Rutabagas are great. The Vermont state vegetable in the Gilfeather Turnip , which is a half-rutabaga, half-turnip hybrid that was developed by John Gilfeather, hence the name. I have grown them, and are harvested after the first hard frost. It's white instead of yellow and it doesn't have that little back-of-the-throat bite that normal turnips have — they're sweet and creamy."

I had no idea that we had a state vegetable, so thanks for that.
I pick mushrooms spring, summer and fall. Chanterelles are my favorites but I know enough to usually find something. I pick ramps and fiddleheads in the spring, usually pickle some of each and freeze enough fiddleheads to have them once a month or so. My in-laws are Italian immigrants, they pick mustard greens and “Italian dandelions”, which I think is chicory. I like Fennel either raw or baked and they cook Savoy cabbage, usually with white beans.

 

[Carbon 6]

This might interest some of you if you are looking for wild edibles or perennial garden plants.
A Global Inventory of Perennial Vegetables
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9ew4...