Dahlia varieties for food

[ottawagardener]

Anyone with experience want to point me in a species/cultivar direction?

[castanea]

Allegedly the older cultivars are more likely to be acceptable as food. Some older varieties were bred with edibility in mind. The newer cultivars were bred with only ornamental qualities being considered. This year I planted about 20 different varieties, about 6 of them being 80 or more years in origin and the rest newer. I haven't dug them up yet to check out the tubers.

Great article here:

www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Edible-Dahlia-Bulbs-Recipes.aspx

I wanted to plant Yellow Gem, but couldn't find it.

[ottawagardener]

Thanks for the link. I think I might have read that before which is where the idea of trying out dahlias came to mind but couldn't find any really old cultivars. I have some Dahlia pinnata seeds though so I guess one/some of them might taste alright? Let me know how your taste tests go.

[castanea]

Here's where I got most of my older varieties:

www.oldhousegardens.com/display.aspx?cat=Dahlia

[orflo]

Dahlia pinnata has some fine edible cultivars, with tubers spreading in all directions. Easy to grow, fine seed producers, bulbs could be somewhat bigger but I'm always neglecting the plants a bit, so that's probably my mistake..
The taste is nice, somewhat spicy, not sweet, not starchy, but very acceptable, some varieties do tend to have a bit of fibres, but nothing really bad. All in all very nice tubers, I don't know why they became neglected at a certain point in history??
Some books mention they were tried out as a potato substitute when the 'Irish potato famine' struck (1845 if I'm not mistaken), lots of tubers were tried out at that time, Chinese yam, oca, lathyrus tuberosus, and so on, but none of these could substitute the potato.
Do dig the tubers early enough if you expect lots of rain in autumn, I had some bad taste experiences when I dug them in an extremely wet autumn, they rotted in the middle of the tubers...

[Walk]

Many years ago (20?) a friend gave me a jar of a coffee substitute called "Dacopa" (I think that was the spelling - she got it in Columbus, Ohio at the time). It was made from dahlia roots and the flavor was excellent. If my memory is correct, it was in the form of small granules that dissolved in hot water. I was intrigued by how good it was and wondered if it could be made at home. I suspected that a juice was extracted and reduced into a syrup that was flash dried?, but that was just a guess. Never ran across it again.

[ottawagardener]

I love looking at that company's stock but don't think they ship to Canada - waaaa. Anyhow, I can use it as a cross checking list. Thank you!

[oxbowfarm]

If you grow Dahlias from seed what kind of tuber yield do you get in the first year?

[ottawagardener]

My experience from this year is some small tubers. Not much production but then it could be because I grew them in the old orchard which has poor soil still. These were also smaller dahlias. I'm going to try again nex year so I'll let you know.

[raymondo]

Telsing, just wondering whether you had any luck tracking down old dahlia cultivars.

[diane]

Information is sketchy. The article by William Woys Weaver (link in castanea's post
above) mentions eating the tubers during summer, and instructions about storing
tubers after frost seem to be only for the purpose of growing them again next year.

There is a quick bread recipe (with grated tubers, cinnamon, chocolate chips and
nuts) in Buried Treasures, Tasty Tubers of the World by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
It states: "...choose tubers that are firm and not too large and woody. They can be
boiled, roasted, or baked. ....Add the flowers to salads; the flavor seems to differ from
color to color".

However, there is no mention in this source either about whether one can continue
to eat stored tubers through the winter. They advise dusting stored tubers with an
environmentally sound fungicide.

Does anyone know of a source of more detailed information?

[rowan]

A couple of years ago I went through a phase of trying out less-used edible garden flowers like dahlia tubers, canna lily rhisomes and day lily flowers to name a few.

The dahlias were awful but I think I might try agian with some other colours or types. The cannas are really nice - just peel and cook like potatoes. Luckily everyone grows cannas around here and my parents garden is full of them. Day lily flowers are also very tasty and it annoys my mother when she catches me eating her precious flowers There are quite a few garden ornamentals with nice edible parts.

[ottawagardener]

Ray: Not too much luck no but I'm going to be hunting through backyard plant sales this year in hope that someone has grandma's old dahlias to try. I'm also starting a bunch from seed.

[raymondo]

That's a good place to start I think. There is a dahlia specialist nursery in a neighbouring state. Their list doesn't look promising but I'll contact them and ask if they have any or know of anywhere that might.
Starting from seed may be the best way to go in order to find good tasting tubers, just like growing true potato seed.

[MikeH]

www.eattheweeds.com/dahlia-pinnata/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dahlia-pinnata