Nevermind Doris Day.Please! Let me dine vicariously on your daylily patch (...um. That sounds...). But I don't have the space for them on my terrace. And some people take them for granted and some think them a pest.
But! The roots are delicious. They are tubers, long and fat, and very crisp when snapped. Raw, they taste like sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes). Dig up a clump, shake off the soil, wash, and slice. You can cook them, too, obviously. And: the buds. Very nice raw in salad, sliced longways, perhaps. A gentle vinaigrette. Or steamed! The flowers...when they have faded. Are considered a delicious vegetable, sauteed...
I beseech you: eat some dayliles. Take pictures. Send.
How 'bout, eat some daylilies, take pictures, post. :-)
ReplyDeleteSo pleased to have encountered your blogsite – recommended by a friend who knows me well enough to know that I'd love it.
ReplyDeleteSpot on, he!
Full disclosure: I'm the proud water-bearer for a container garden situated in a sun-drenched Parisian courtyard.
Thank you for the tip on daylily roots.
— Hyssop
Oh...yes. Thank you, Learned Leader. I'm also debating whether to fully realize my crackpot alter ego and beg for some from a nearby clump.
ReplyDeleteEats shoots and leaves, me.
Hyssop - I have some on the terrace. Hyssop, that is. Sun-drenched Parisian couryard. Now that's just...sigh.
Sigh. And it's just time for my croissant, which I have't got.
I have a super abundance of tiger lilies that have been in the yard since at least the 1940s. Companions to irises of the same vintage.
ReplyDeletevery . . . . um . . . "vigorous" is the word I think.
Now Melanie, your tiger lilies have spots, right? Lilium lancifolium, ex L. tigrinum...the bulbs are edible (again, I know, but it's true), but poisonous, all parts, for kitties.
ReplyDeleteHow nice to have them naturalized.
Don't suppose you want to cook up some tiger lily bulbs?
I have tons of daylilies I um, borrowed from the field across the street. They grow around the base of what used to be an old barn along with some roses and lilacs the town mowing crews seem to have a personal vendetta against. Maybe I'll harvest some buds and roots from over there so mine can bloom in peace.
ReplyDeleteI'm betting Melanie's tiger lilies are the same as these daylilies, Marie... I first learned that daylilies were edible from a Chinese roommate...they're the "golden needles" in hot and sour soup and moo shu pork. Didn't know about the tubers being edible, though! You could easily grow some of the little guys (like Stella de Oro) in a pot, or even a couple of the the big wild orange ones...
ReplyDeleteHi QC - I can grow them yes, and have, but enough to eat and enjoy the flowers :-)
ReplyDeleteI have a couple. I planted a garden for a lady in PSlope who wanted her yard to look like a roadside in Maine and daylilies (orange) were the cue.
ReplyDeleteEating? Hmm. I always thought the Italian fresh pasta cavatelli was modeled off the daylily bud, just before opening. So they always looked tasty to me, I imagined them having that same texture. MMMM
Oh, my point about the PS garden,
ReplyDeleteI got mine from her yard when she sold the building.
I have been known to go outside late in the day and nip some day lily flowers to add to salads.Lunch salads would be better, of course!
ReplyDeleteAnd the cats seem to know(instinctively?) that they should not munch them.