Harvesting the Groundnut-Walking on Potatoes

String of Groundnuts

The first time I learned that there were wild edible potatoes in the ground was on a walk with, Russ Cohen on July 26, 2012 at the organic farm in Carlisle, MA. We were following this wild edibles enthusiast like a swarm of bees when mid-stride as if he were a magician he swiped a plant up off the ground and introduced it to the group as Groundnut. It was a vine with what looked like a mini wrecking ball dangling from it.

He explained that the groundnut was what the Native Americans first introduced the settlers to and it is the food source that facilitated their first winter survival.

Two years later I found out that harvesting the groundnut involves a bit of digging so the magic trick was solved. Mr. Cohen had obviously already staked out his wild edible exhibits with trowel and elbow grease.

Since that day on the farm it had been my goal to find this illusive ground potato for myself. It finally happened on August 14, 2014 while I was walking the power lines at a local wildlife sanctuary. Because I had studied my trusty Peterson's field guide there was no doubt that I had come across the groundnut when I spotted clusters of maroon pea-like flowers winding themselves around the stalks of weeds that bordered the path. I was ecstatic and I shouted a big "thank you" up to the sky. I was shaking with excitement as I started at the flower cluster and quickly followed the vine down the stalk of the weed it was wound around and once at the base started tugging lightly while loosening the earth just ahead with my car key (I did not come prepared) until I dislodged a string of three grape-sized tubers. I took these tubers home, presented them to Slack like Russ Cohen had presented the plant to the group and explained that that night we were going to eat potatoes. As it turns out the groundnuts have a very thick consistency and are starchy. They are very satisfying!

Groundnut Blossoms

Groundnut winding around stalk of host plant  

Harvesting Cattail Flour

Bundle of Cattail Rhizomes

It is winter and my wild side is pressing me to taste something new. The list of winter wild edibles is short but a list nevertheless. At any point of the year there is an edible part of a cattail to harvest but today I will attempt to harvest the cattail rhizome with Slack. A rhizome is  is a modified subterranean stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome). Location is key. Cattails like to grow along the highway in the ditches where they can get plenty of sun and water...needless to say, not an ideal site for the forager. The day is warm and sunny, a perfect day to be elbow deep in mud yet I'm driving us to some undisclosed location to harvest cattail rhizomes and aside from watching a YouTube video, I have no idea what I'm doing.  We investigated a few side roads for a good stand without success. We finally found the spot. Ideal? Not so much, but we were eager and at this point it's about the practice and not so much the quality. We parked the car and I grabbed my pack containing: a plastic grocery bag, rubber dish gloves and a jack knife. We wove our way through the skeleton canes of mugwort and chicory to the stand of last years cattails.

Harvesting a rhizome from this web has the same effect of removing a jenga block from its tower (that is, when doing so does not cause the structure to collapse), it has very little effect on the future of the stand.

I pulled on my lime green gloves (to keep my hands from getting cold and muddy). I began by removing the muck surrounding the base of an old cattail until I struck the rhizome. I then unearthed it like a fossil, removing the soil above it with one hand and gently loosening the newly exposed length with the other. If pulled too hard the root will break. The rhizomes extend about 8 to 12 inches before they end at the base of a dead cattail or what's referred to as a spur or the cone of tightly wound leaves of next years growth. You can either use a jack knife or give them a good upwards tug to sever them from their starchy network. With the jack knife shave the tip off and make sure the inner core is white; discard any sections that are brown.

Once home, I washed the muddy roots in several changes of water. Next, I peeled the outer, spongy layer to expose the white starchy fibrous inner cores. There are three different ways to extract the starch.  1. You can wrap a section in tinfoil and bake it in the oven like a potato. Once baked you pull out the starch between your teeth. 2. You can loosen the inner core by bending and twisting it and then leaving it out to dry in the sun or dehydrating it. Once dried you can separate the starch from the fibers with mortar and pestle and voila you have flour. 3. You can fill a bucket of water, submerge the cores, bend and twist them to release the starch from the fibers, allow for the starch to settle to the bottom, pour off the water, scrape out the wet starch, and spread on a tray to sun dry or dehydrate. Once dried you can scrape into a mortar and pound it into a fine powder via a pestle.

My cattail potato was a bit disappointing because the starch had hardened and it was too much work to extract with tongue and teeth and therefore not a rewarding experience.

The flour that I processed by means of mortar and pestle was a satisfactory method as it skipped the step of wetting  the starch. There were, however, many fiber in the end product that then needed to be separated out by means of sifting.

Extracting the starch via water bucket method proved to be the most successful. With this method I was able to separate the starch from the fibers more thoroughly then with a mortar and pestle after dehydration. There were fewer fibers in the end product, however I did still separate them out via sifting. One drawback was that the end product was still a bit damp and because I already pounded it into a fine powder I could not continue to dry it in the dehydrator because the fan was blowing the fine particles away. The yield ended up being about 1/2 cup of cattail flour. 

The whole process is a muddy one but you lose yourself in the task. What's rewarding about foraging is that rather than being a passive consumer of food you are actively harvesting and processing the wild and free food that you found. And when you open your cabinet and spot that 2 lb bag of flour you will smile to yourself knowing from whence it came.

Cattail Rhizomes

Peels of the Cattail Rhizome

Removing starch from fibrous inner rhizome core

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Wet starch

Dehydrated Starch

Fully Processed Starch

                                                     

Cattail Cake

    1/2 cup cattail flour

    A pinch of salt

    1 tsp baking powder

    1 tbs honey

    1/3 cup almond milk

    1 egg

    1 tsp butter

    1/4 cup Autumn Olive Berries (optional)

* Slack and I harvested a quart size bag of Autumn Olive berries over the Fall and it was a nice addition to our cake.

bake at 375 until golden brown (about 20 minutes)

Autumn Olive