Stealth plants

There are many plants that are good for food but are not generally recognized by the public. Many of the plants we now consider to be weeds, such as dandelion, were brought to this continent as food from Europe. Naturally, they escaped from cultivation and spread rapidly. As soon as they became naturalized, they began to revert from cultivated to wild forms. Wild forms are usually more bitter and tough than the cultivated forms. They also rarely produce as much food value as cultivated forms.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of different types of plants that can be eaten and have good nutritional value.

Just like garden plants, these wild plants have a harvesting season. If harvested out of season, they are usually very poor fare.
A cultivated example is asparagus. If you harvest asparagus in the early spring, when it is short, young and tender, it is good food. But if you harvest it in August, when the plant is fully developed, it is virtually inedible, bitter, tough and fibrous. The same is true of wild foods. They must be harvested at the right time to be good food.

This post will cover two stealth plants that provide food during a large portion of the year.

The first plant is Russian thistle. This is the large thistle with the deep purple flowers. It is also called bull thistle in some areas. This plant has long, wide leaves with sharp stickers on the edges of the leaves. It puts up a flower stock in early to late spring. A purple flower opens and releases a bunch of down when it ripens. The stalk has sharp stickers all over it. This plant is widely despised and is very tenacious. A good way to control it is to eat it!
This plant is edible from late fall to early spring. Although the leaves are edible, they are a real pain to prepare, since all the spines on the edges have to be cut off. The time to eat this plant is when the leaves form a flat rosette, or circle, on the ground. When the plant begins standing up in the spring, preparatory to sending up a flower stalk, it is too late to harvest. The entire plant will taste bitter and soap like if harvested too late.
To harvest, dig the roots intact. Cut off the leaves at the base of the root and clean the root until it is white. If you have harvested the root at the right time, it will be free from fiber and have a mild, slightly sweet taste. The texture will be like carrots. It can be eaten raw or cooked. It readily takes on the flavor of other foods and is good in most dishes that use carrots. It can be sliced thin and used in salad, candied like carrots or used in soup or stews. It is very rich in starch, which gives the body energy.

The second plant is daylillies. These are the yellow or orange lilies that send up a flower that only lasts one day, hence the name day lily. This plant grows like a large clump of grass with wide leaves, about a half inch to an inch wide. The clump can grow to two feet tall, but usually is about eighteen inches. The clump sends up several flower spikes over the course of the summer. The spikes form pod like flower buds, the flowers open and die the next day. When the spike is still small and tender, it can be harvested and cooked like asparagus. The taste of all the above ground edible parts of this plant strongly resembles green beans. When the flowers form pods, before they open, they can be snapped off and cooked like green beans. They have a slightly shorter cooking time than green beans. When the flowers die, they can be harvested and dried. These are the oriental lilies you can buy in Asian food stores. They have a spicy flavor and add a little thickening to soups and stews.

Underneath the plant, just under the ground level, there are little finger shaped tuberish things. These can be up to an inch in diameter and three inches long, but are usually smaller. The young ones are very white and crisp. They are mild flavored and are good raw or cooked. When sliced thin, they make a fine addition to a salad. Cooked, they are mild and slightly sweet. They are full of energy and usually available all year. If you dig around the plant a little, without disturbing the roots much, you can harvest several of these every few months. The plant keeps making new ones to replaced the ones that are harvested. The tuberish things are usually available even in the winter, anytime the ground is thawed enough to dig them.

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