Cattail Recipe - Cattail Flower Griddle Cake

So may parts of cattails (Typha latifolia) are edible. The early shoots are edible as a vegetable in early spring. Pull apart the leaves when they are about 2' tall to get to the tender heart, and eat it like bamboo shoots, chopped raw in salads, and pickled lightly. The flavor is very similar to cucumber. Cattail flowers are a good source of bright yellow pollen in late spring in southeastern Connecticut. We gather and sift the pollen and use it as a nutritious supplement in baking throughout the year.

Gillian and the sheathed flower spikes

This is an easy recipe using the pulp from the cattail  flower spike in mid-spring. When we gather them, the flower spike is still sheathed in a single leaf. We cut the flower spike and bring it home to peel, but be aware that there are usually lots of tiny black beetles hiding inside the leaf, so peel them outside. I then pinch the darker green male portion of the flower along the stem, and the pulp flakes off easily. I cannot get much off the female flower, so I don't bother. I can still boil up the female flower and let Gillian chew on it like cattail-on-the-cob. For this particular batch we had some glasswort (Salicornia) from the seashore on hand, and I added it for a salty crunch. We served these like appetizers, with a dollop of sour cream on top.

Removing the male yellow-green pulp from the spike

This recipe is available in our book, available Spring 2016.

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239108626260&

Cattail flower stalk; male portion
on top, female portion on the bottom