Eating unusual parts of plants

This thread is inspired by a post on plant breeding:

J. Hunch wrote:

-radishes with huge, colorful, fragrant flowers (and a corollary project: making some decorative crucifers {stock and honesty} easier to use as food)

.

Honesty have quite tasty roots when cooked, like thin turnips. I tried some a couple years ago see my blog write up. I never pursued the idea, and as a biannual you don`t get to enjoy the flowers before eating. I suppose one could just harvest the best roots and try replanting...

However, there are other instances of bits of plants that normally go to waste that could be eaten, or at least used in an edible way. I couldn`t find a relevant thread so thought I`d start a new one. I`m inviting suggestions for other ideas here.

(We`ll stick to plant parts I think; animal products are a different subject)

Nancy Reading wrote:
However, there are other instances of bits of plants that normally go to waste that could be eaten, or at least used in an edible way. I couldn`t find a relevant thread so thought I`d start a new one. I`m inviting suggestions for other ideas here.

I like the seed pods, young leaves, flowers, and tender stems of radish and turnips better that the roots. Especially radish, I've been developing a landrace of them for several years, selecting for mild, crisp pods and tasty stems.

Recently I have been working on developing a Brassica oleracea crop for that same purpose. It's a mix up of cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, collards, kohlrabi, and what ever else I could get ahold of. Goal is to harvest fresh greens in extremely early spring before hot weather and insect pest show up. This past spring was my first real success with it. I call it cabbage-ish and it is vastly superior in my opinion to growing any of those crops individually and traditionally. It makes abundant harvest of yummy greens continuously over several weeks.  

Many people don't realize that most parts of plants are edible.

When I am cooking something like a stew or a soup, I try to use as much of the plant as I can.

I even keep a jar in the freezer to add bits and pieces of things to save them until I am making a stew.

Leaves, flowers, and roots almost always can be used.

It might require some research on edibility to be on the safe side. Or maybe use the "taste test", first and when adding to a meal only use a small amount at first to get the body used to the item being added.

Or course, by adding most of the plant a person doesn't have much left to put in the compost pile.

I attended an exhibition of traditional Myaamia/Miami foods by Dani Tippmann. She said that they eat the cornsilk along with sweet corn.  Sautéed in butter.  Also that maple “whirlybirds” seeds can be eaten like peas; the sugar maples being sweeter.

Dave,
I really like radish pods too. At least I have some `fodder radish` that turned out to have very nice pods. There`s a German variety (Munchen bier) that is grown for it`s pods too. Easily available in the UK.  I often give my dogs the thick bits of calabrese stems. They like it as an between meal treat. Sometimes I`ll dice them with the flower buds if I can be bothered, but that`s probably half the sprout wasted otherwise. In spring I make up salad bags from the `weeds` that grow in my polytunnel. The kale is coming into flower then, so the opening tips make quite a nice garnish in the bag. I also just like to graze on them raw in the garden. Your cabbage-ish stems do look thicker than the normal radish flowers.

Mk,
How interesting that the sweetcorn silk is edible. Maybe that could be the next gourmet vegetable rediscovered! I know we liked to play with it as children - making blonde princess tresses. I wonder if it goes crispy, or soft like noodles? Could be useful for a low carb diet perhaps.
I had heard that maple seeds are edible. I may try that one. We have a few Sycamores that usually produce lots of seed. I`ll have to do a bit more research, thanks!

This is an awesome topic!!!  I've been eating the young leaves from broccoli and other brassicas for years. The scapes from garlic are exotic and terrific. I grow even more zucchini and winter squashes because I love fried, stuffed squash blossoms. I almost never eat fried foods but the squash blossoms are so good. But last year I realized that I like the green tops from diakon radish even more than I like the roots! I add them to soups and stir fries and quiches. I too had no idea about the corn silks! What a super suggestion!

Two things that come to mind are sweet potato leaves & immature pumpkins. I think both are excellent. I recently learned that Jerusalem artichoke leaves are edible but haven't tried them yet.

I ate a lot of squash leaves this summer. I liked them steamed with kale, which resulted in a really nice texture combination. The kale was kind of al dente and the squash leaves were very soft.

I ate the raab from lamb's quarters a few times this year, too. You have to make sure the stem still snaps easily when you pick it, otherwise it's really stringy. I find lamb's quarter leaves have an unpleasant texture, so the raab was a nice way to make use of the plant.

I was thinking that since I've gotten the rabbits I don't really feel I need to eat the weird stuff-- they do that for me, and make fertilizer to boot. (I'm talking banana peels, mango skins, apple cores, etc).

But then I realized most of what people are talking about eating is already part of my menu!! I'm a huge fan of cauliflower leaves (I will ask for it with the leaves when I buy it), cooked in the pressure cooker with a bit of garlic and soy sauce, and I grow sweet potatoes specifically for the leaves (in fact, when I found sweet potatoes in the ground at the end of the season I was actually surprised, hadn't even considered there would be any).
Radish and daikon leaves make great pickles, and I'm letting some kale go to seed just to eat the pods.

Arugula flowers are probably my favorite to eat, with their spicy sweetness. I love radish seed pods, too, and frequently use them in place of green beans in pot pies and soups. Green beans haven't grown well for me the past couple of years, but radishes grow abundantly.

I read about making fig leaf tea, or using fig leaves to wrap foods before cooking to impart a sweet fruity aroma, but I haven't tried it, yet.

That reminds me, I was going to try olive leaf tea. I`m expecting it to be a bit more medicinal than food though.

Try eating the stem of the zucchini, ca 2-3 cm nearest to the veg, pealed, can be eaten raw of cooked.
Or the roots of cilantro or parsley, they are also nice.

As I was chopping up a cabbage, I was reminded of this thread.

I chop the whole cabbage head so that all that is about 1/2 inch of the core.

I also eat the rind of spaghetti squash.  I don't eat the squash like spaghetti.  I cut it in half and cook like an acorn squash with lots of butter.  The rind softens enough to eat the way I fix it.

Thanks for broadening my imagination here with this thread. Being an avid vermiculturist, the  earth worms get lots of the veg scraps here. However, today I just ran a large vat of plums and spices through the food mill. The pits, cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice and ginger slices were coated with the flavorful jam. I boiled a quart of water, poured it over the sticky remains, then strained the food-mill leavings one last time. As I read your posts, I am enjoying the most awesome jam-dregs-tea and feeling so happy to know I’m not the only one who notices the possibilities in what others might toss. Keep up the great work!