Trace Oswald wrote:
They have a very narrow window that they can be eaten. You have to get them when they turn from green to yellow. They need t be eaten when they are fully ripe, but go bad quickly after. I've read that the seeds are poisonous, but I'm not certain. After all, I've read that about apple seeds as well.
Got it! I thought to look it up on Greene Dean's website and he tells ways of preparing them, as well.
Eat The Weeds - May Apple, the Forgotten Fruit
He does say the seeds are not to be eaten:
Green Dean wrote: When unripe the Mayapple resembles a lime. Then it turns a soft yellow and wrinkles a little, see to the right. That is ripe. The rest of the plant is also often dying at that time as well. Trim off the ends, do not eat the seeds. If you cook with it remove the seeds first.
I looked other places first for mayapple, and most reported the whole plant as being poisonous. This is definitely a trend I've seen over the years on the internet. I think people started by just being very cautious about liability, but then it starts to be lost knowledge that you can eat a lot more plants than are listed
online. Knowing how to eat them is often the key. Kind of like cassava
root being poisonous if you don't know how to prepare it.
Green Dean also mentions on his website that some (and some in particular) university extension services seem to believe that ALL plants are poisonous. A mild exaggeration, but I looked at one of the sites they were saying this about, and if you go by their recommendations indigenous people and the settlers here wouldn't have had much to eat!
Looking forward to hearing the results of the taste test.