Dahlias - anyone growing them for food?

[caledonian]

They are edible, I'm told. Or at least one species of them is. See Eat the Weeds: Dahlia Pinnata and William Woys Weaver in MotherEarthNews.

I tried roasting some extra tubers from a bright red cultivar I was given from a local; they were resinous, something like a potato crossed with a pine-flavored gummy bear. I rather liked it, but I don't know what other varieties or species are like.

Rather like daylilies, I suspect this may be an interesting new potential crop if someone goes through the trouble of breeding for taste and safety.

[raymondo]

Here's a link to a previous discussion on dahlias: alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=others&thread=5853&page=1

[caledonian]

Thank you for that. I wonder why the search function didn't turn up that link (or any other).

[Joseph Lofthouse]

May 8, 2013 16:19:28 GMT -5 caledonian said:

Thank you for that. I wonder why the search function didn't turn up that link (or any other).

The default search is for the past 7 days. I normally change that to 700 days before submitting the search query. That's way at the bottom of the page where it's easy to miss.

[fijihank]

We had dahlia pie tonight and have used them in salads and soup. We have used several different varieties and found the taste uniform in all, not strong but similar to a water chestnut or Jerusalem Artichoke.