Feeling peckish, petal? Try a dahlia, darling
THEIR pom-pom flowers and bright colours have made dahlias a favourite in English gardens for 300 years.
But for all that time we may have been neglecting their best feature – their tasty roots.
Inspired by the ancient Aztecs, who first cultivated dahlias for their taste and as a medicine, a nursery has created a range especially for the flavour of their tubers.
Swiss firm Lubera has created six varieties that will flower all summer. When the blooms drop in the autumn the tubers can be dug up, cooked and eaten.
One of the ‘Deli Dahlias’ is said to taste of fennel and celery, another of fresh parsley. Also known as ‘dahlia yams’, they can be roasted, boiled, mashed or fried and substituted for potato in dishes.
The 16th century Spanish conquistadors, who also introduced the potato to Europe, recorded dahlia tubers being used as a staple food in South America, as well as a treatment for epilepsy.
The plants were primarily intended as a food crop when they were first imported to Europe but gardeners picked up on their beauty and all notion of marketing them as a food was forgotten.
Now, the boom in ‘grow your own’ has brought their culinary potential back into focus. A spokesman for Lubera, which is selling a 1.3-litre pot of flowers online for £4.40, said: ‘Gardeners no longer need to be sad when they dig up their dahlias in autumn. Although the festival of flowers is over, the eating adventures can begin.’
But at a time when health officials are urging supermarkets not to stock daffodils near vegetable racks to avoid any danger of the poisonous bulbs being mistaken for food, be warned that not all dahlias are tasty to eat. Centuries of cultivation for floral beauty has meant the tubers of most ornamental varieties will be flavourless.