Cat Tail Flour!?

[GlorifiedRice]

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/duffyk43.html

Apparently several pounds of the pollen contained in Cat Tails can be used as FLOUR...

Interesting.

Have I stumped the board?

[WHT]

I guess you never had any cources in servival. Lots of neat things in the wild can be mad into food. Accorns being a personal fave.

[misstenacity]

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/duffyk43.html

Apparently several pounds of the pollen contained in Cat Tails can be used as FLOUR...

Interesting.

Have I stumped the board?

←

Absolutely. I've got one or two Native American cookbooks that call for that exact flour in some 'bread' like recipes and a porridge or two. Now, if I can find that stuff, that would be interesting...

I've already tracked down mesquite flour (but haven't tried using it yet). I love the idea of using traditional and REALLY old-school ingredients and techniques.

Andrea

[Kayakado]

Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons talks about this. You can also eat the young stalks of the Cat Tails sauteed in garlic and butter, "Cossack Asparagus".

From what my northern friends tell me cat tails are soon to be a thing of the past, they are being pushed out by some type of Asian grass

[HQAntithesis]

It took me to the 4th post before I realised you weren't talking about the tail's of real cats .

[helenjp]

Oh yes, pollen is FOOD!

In New Zealand, raupo (typha orientalis) pollen is made into a kind of cake or bread.

Scroll down to Raupo - Maori bread

In Japan, a similar pollen (from typha latifolia, although typha orientalis also grows here) was used internally and externally to stop bleeding - it appears in a famous folktale, used to heal a cheeky white rabbit skinned by enraged and vengeful crocodiles!