Edible Canna/ Canna Edulis

Hi there,

has anyone here personal experience in cooking with edible canna? Recipes?

Thank you,

Julia

No, Canna Edudils, also known as 'Achira'

Yes, I cooked Canna in a slow cooker with a nice piece of venison roast and both I and my husband thought the Canna was pretty darn yucky. I wanted to like it because it grows well here, but nope, it was yucky.

that was my experience, too. That's why I wanted to speak to someone... who may know more than me. The stuff I found on the net wasn't really helpful, they all say to use it like potato (Aehm, NO).
I wonder if they all just copy text from each other...
Thanks

Dang, bump!  I just got kicked down tons of canna, red and green leaf varieties --- does anyone know if there is a taste difference between the two?  Maybe one of them actually is used like potatoes, like you know, the entire internet says?  Haha

Very old posts here, but I'll add my two bits for people who come looking.
First--Are you sure you have the edible canna? Canna edulis/Canna indica. I guess I mean, what kind of yucky? Texture--fibrous, or just not what you are used to/were expecting? Taste--muddy/mineral(as the perfumers would say) bitter, bland, sour, turmeric or ginger-like flavors?
If you're getting unpleasant, ginger-like flavors, your canna species isn't quite right. They are indeed ginger relatives, as is the actual plant they make commercial arrowroot from, Maranta.
My mother boiled our roots--fairly certain they _are_ Canna edulis--for a good 45 minutes, with potatoes for comparison. I _think_ she peeled them first. They were bland, starchy, sporadically fibrous and a little watery (crisp, maybe?), but honestly I liked them better than cooked sunroot (Jerusalem artichoke). (Also no undo flatulence afterward. +.) Truly they are not just like potatoes--I've seen some people comparing them to taro--but I didn't find them offensive. I've also heard that there's pretty huge variability in stringiness between older and younger rhizomes.
She boiled them, hard. For _45 minutes_. I didn't think to taste their cooking water.
I'm going to have a go at them tonight--cook them separately and add them to a venison stew--I'm doing stock from meaty bones my uncle's buddy's didn't want.

Update:
Venison stew turned out tasty if not handsome.
I boiled the Canna roots separately for Fifty-five minutes.
They came out crisp. I cut them into inch-long rounds before adding them to everything else. It might have something to do with the fact that they've been in a fairly warm kitchen for the last week, or maybe Mom cut them smaller in the first place--but I don't know.
There's a picture of the cooking water around here somewhere--couldn't detect anything terrible in it. Maybe a little mineral but not metallic or muddy.
But yeah--00:55. Starting with cold water.