posted 3 years ago
While I don't have any experience with that species, I have nibbled on Hylotelephium telephium occasionally, while out walking along the seashore. I find it quite nice-tasting. The very young leaves are best, but the main difference as they age is consistency rather than taste, although the taste changes a bit too (from only fresh "vegetable-y" to a tad tangy, but still good). Once I tried the swollen, bulbous-like side roots in very early spring, just as the cliffs became partially free from snow, and I remember liking the taste (this was a few years ago, but if I remember right the taste somehow reminded me of radishes). One time I also tried to eat the central root, which wasn't nice at all, woody and bitter. That was in summer, and I couldn't find any of the swollen side roots. Suppose they might be nutrient storage that's used up by the plant's growth.
Your plants look a lot like the H. telephium growing wild around here (other than the colour of the flowers, ours are more greenish), and according to Swedish Wikipedia, a lot of cultivars sold as H. spectabile are actually hybrids with H. telephium...