Daylily
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This delicious Asian "show" flower, especially common on the east coast, has been planted throughout America. It gets its name because each flower lives only 1 day. Use the shoots in early spring, and the flower buds, flowers, and wilted flowers in late spring and early summer. Caution: Daylilies, especially the raw shoots, cause digestive distress in about 1 out of 50 people, and in rare circumstances (I've never seen this happen), the compounds that cause this are concentrated enough to make anyone sick. |
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Daylily Shoot
The sword-like leaves with parallel veins arise in late winter and early spring, growing in dense stands. Rhizomes (underground stems) ending in thickened tubers distinguishes this plant from poisonous lilies. |
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Daylily Shoot
Use raw the shoots raw in salads, or sautÈ, steam, stir-fry, deep-fry, bake, simmer in soups, or pickle. |
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Daylily Shoots
Growing in dense stands makes the shoots easy to collect in quantity before most other edibles even appear. |
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Daylily Flower Buds
Cook the unopened buds like string beans. |
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Daylily in Flower
Use the orange (some cultivars are yellow), 6-petaled flowers raw in salads, in hot-and-sour soup, or deep-fried. |
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Daylily Flower
Note the 6 orange petals and protruding stamens. Discard the flower's acrid, green base. |
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Wilted Daylily Flower and Buds
Reconstitute the previous day's wilted flowers in soups. |
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Daylily Rhizomes, Tubers, and Roots
Rhizomes, underground stems ending in thickened tubers, allow this plant, which doesn't set seed, spread. Preparing the small, tough-skinned tubers, which are season all year, is too labor-intensive to be worthwhile. |
| MINI SPECIALIST|FOUND FOOD: DAYLILIES Wall Street Journal Magazine March 25, 2009 By William R. Snyder |
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