Cattail Vegetarian Pulled-Pork Barbecue love going to wild food weekend. Each offers on opportunity Love go ain nar foods wile ner par of te {ay and to learn rom foragers who enjay experimenting with procesaing techniques and recipes ‘One ofthe food items that surprised me at » Nature Wonder Wiel Foods Weekend in West Viginia was a mock puled-pork {ilGecoe made ltom the brown seed heads of cttal The cattall Rance were collected in mic September. The texture and taste nee Nonishingly realistic and go tasty that requested the Tepe. The orignal recip is by Ern Frosch Gee Notes). 've SER*, nl rewording onthe procedure and neve doubled the sun of onion, based on out experance in folowing ft but Ureingresionte she chose and the technique she developed ia discovery worth sharing, Thanks, Er ‘THE RECIPE: 2 cups brown cattail fluff Beggs 11/2.cup melted butter (Erin used vegan butter; teal butter works fine. 41/8 cup milk (Erin used almond milk; any milk should work just as well.) 2 tablespoons real maple syrup 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon black pepper ‘1 medium red onion Hickory barbecue sauce (or your choice) Preheat oven to 275" F. 2. Loosen cattal fluff from the stem core: place 2 dark brown cattail heads in a plastic shopping bag. Tie the hancles oft bag together as you squeeze out the air. Wrap your hands around one of the cattails from outside the bag, and twisty hands in opposite directions to separate the seeds and flufl from the knitting-needle-ike core of the cattal head. Repe: (Ty to keep the fuff contained, or you'll have seeds drifting ‘over the place!) Carefully transfer two moderately:packed ¢ of seed fluff into a medium sized-mixing bow 43. Stirin the eggs, melted butter, maple syrup, nutmeg and black pepper with the catall fluff. Once thoroughly combin transfer mixture to a food processor, 4. Blend well in food processor, adding the milk to help smoot ‘ut, Pour into a greased 8 x 8 baking dish and spread ever 5. Bake in a 275° F oven for about 20 minutes or unt rising bubbles occur and the mixture starts to puff up. Remove fre ‘oven, Let cool for a while, then cut into thirds one way and fourths the other way. 6. As you remove each rectangle, tear it into pieces roughly or inch in size and place them into a small bowl. Set aside. 7. Dice a medium sized onion and toss in skillet over mediun high heat. Sprinkle generously with black pepper and cook onion pieces have caramelized but are still moist, 8. Dump the “pulled pork” pieces in with the onions and cook until mixture is hot. 9. Stir in your favorite BBQ sauce. Enjoy! NOTES: Ifyou go to www-smartlving network com/foad/a/gastronomic foraged-cattal-vegetarian-pulled-pork-barbeque-recipel, you + find anilustrated and intriguing account of how Erin created he recipe.) On the web page where Erin posted her recipe, someone askec the question, "..how late in the season can you actually use the fiuff? Does it get too fibrous as it gets closer to bursting open? can you use the brown ‘heads’ at any stage?”FURTHER TESTING: Narrow-leaved cattal seedheads that were more greenish than brown in August were collected and tried, using Erin's recipe The heads were so tightly packed and tightly attached that it was very dificult to remove the developing seeds and fluff from the knitting-needle-like core. No seeds became airborne on fluf, a= happens later in the year. The barbecue taste was there, but it was hard to chew, and definitely to0 fibrous. Collected from the same location the second week of September. The heads were definitely browner, but still somewhat greenish. Easier to remove seeds and the pre-fiuf, but alas, it's, sill tough and fibrous to eat. Found anather location where the seedheads were all brown, and they produced a less fibrous result Had several tiny seeds drifting around the room on their flu. They came off the core very easily, owe resorted to putting the heads ina plastic shopping bag to contain them, as we twisted the seeds and fluff loose, From my testing, | would conclude that the prime time to collect cattail heads is when they are a dark chocolate brown, and before the heads begin to break apart