How To Make Flour From Cattails - Survival Manual
As you probably already know cattails, a water loving plant of North America and other continents is one of the best survival plants around. One of many uses for the plant is for food. And food is supplied by the plant in many ways through different parts of the plant.
This article will examine one aspect of using cattails for food, Flour. It is simple, so the article is short. For some reason this use of cattails is mostly unknown to people even to some survivalist. Flour is coincidentally the best tasting use of cattails for food. I guess you can get more bulk from other parts of this edible plant, but man, this use tastes great so for sanity purposes you should have this knowledge.
Cattails produce a high protein pollen which luckily for you and I can be easily collected. Once collected it can be used just like any flour you buy from the store. Flour stores better than many foods so any food that can be stored even for relatively short periods of time gets an extra couple of stars in importance.
To collect the pollen you simply shake the pollen off of the cattails into a container. Cattail pollen isn't available year round. The plant flowers in the spring so you will need to collect the pollen at this time. Store the pollen like you would any other flour. In a sealed container away from sunlight, moisture and heat.
The flour can be used for all sorts of dishes, one of which is pancakes, my favorite! Flour can be collected from other plants and some flours will be more suited for one dish over another. Mixing more than one flour source can extend your flours flexibility as well as mediate taste from less desirable tasting flours you have made.
Tip: You can grind up the root of the cattail to make flour as well. Supplementing the cattail pollen flour with cattail root flour can extend your flour supply.