Cattails

What you need

• A knife
• A bag or two
• Gloves, and boots for the mud
• Clean water to wash what you pick
• A pot if you plan to cook it

How

1. Find a stand of cattails at a marsh, a pond edge or a slow brook. Be certain of the plant. See Plants to leave alone.
2. In spring, pull the young shoots from the base. Peel off the outer leaves and eat the white core, raw or cooked.
3. In early summer, cut the green flower spikes before they turn brown. Boil them and eat them like corn on the cob.
4. When the top spike turns yellow with pollen, bend it into a bag and shake. The pollen mixes into flour for bannock.
5. In fall and winter, dig the roots out of the mud. Wash them, crush them in water and let the starch settle to the bottom.
6. Pull the fluff from a dry brown head for tinder. It flares fast, so have kindling ready. See Fire without matches.
7. Cut the long dry leaves in fall for weaving mats or stuffing a bed.

Do and don't

Watch for

Notes

Cattails grow across Newfoundland and Labrador in marshes, bog edges, ditches and slow streams.

The fluff also stuffs a mitt or a boot for warmth in a pinch.