At our Thanksgiving gathering this year, I made a new dish that no one has ever tasted - Dahlia Kimchi!
Yes, I'm talking about eating dahlias, more precisely, the TUBERS of these beautiful flowers.
How did I get the idea of eating dahlia tubers in my head? Well, from history, actually.
Dahlias originated in Mexico and its cultivation may have dated back to pre-Aztec times. The oldest written records about dahlias came from the 16th century. According to Francisco Hernandez, King Phillip II's personal physician who spent five years studying the natural history of the New World, dahlias were used for its medicinal qualities:
"[The dahlia tuber] when consumed in a weight of one ounce, alleviates stomach pain, dissipates blowing, draws forth urine, invokes perspiration, drives out coldness, strengthens the stomach weak because of the cold, turns aside cholic, opens what has been blocked, and when moved to the swellings, disperses them." The Dahlia: An Early History
The Slow Food Foundation also noted dahlia's medicinal uses, including the tubers' property of reducing glucose levels by producing inulin (which is great for diabetics!). Dahlias are used in a variety of local dishes:
"Traditional dishes include tuber soup, fried tubers, dahlia tuber atole, fish with dahlia tubers and petals, salad with dahlia petals and dahlia petal palanquetas."
So why aren't we eating and using the dahlias as medicine as they were used traditionally? Well, around the 18th century, dahlias came to Europe through seeds that were mailed to different botanical gardens. European horticulturalists cultivated these seeds and bred "double-flowered" varieties. They made colored portraits and illustrations of the flowers, which greatly captured the public's interest. The rest, as they say, is history.
I was fascinated with dahlia's back story and after a very, very abundant harvest of dahlia tubers, I had plenty extra to taste. Each tuber we planted multiplied into large clumps of 10-15 more tubers. We had more than 40 of these clumps.
We ate a raw tuber and the flavor reminded me of jicama with a spicy, radish note and the texture is like water chestnuts. Young tubers have a nice, succulent crunch. My first thought was to grate it and make a spring roll, but @sagescrub had a better idea: kimchi.
We have both been enjoying radish kimchi as a condiment to almost every meal and so this sounded like a great way to enjoy dahlia tubers. I substituted radish for dahlia tubers in my usual kimchi recipe and the result was delicious! Our friends loved this kimchi too.
How to make Dahlia Kimchi:
Peel and finely slice 4 lbs of dahlia tubers into sticks.
Add 1 teaspoon of finely minced ginger, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 tablespoon sugar. Mix well and set aside for at least 30 minutes.
Drain and reserve the juice.
Add 2 tablespoons of finely minced garlic, 4 stalks of green onions, 1/2 c Korean pepper flakes, 3 tablespoons of gochujang (Korean pepper paste), and 1/3 cup of the reserved juice. *You can reduce the amount of pepper flakes if you prefer it to be milder.
Mix it all together and you're done! Taste and adjust as needed. Keep kimchi refrigerated and it will last for several months. The flavors develop the longer it sits, but you can also eat it right away.
We love that dahlias produce abundantly and they provide nutrition, medicine, and beauty! Dahlias meet many of our criteria for a good permaculture plant so we will soon offer tubers of our most prolific dahlias (the flower pictured above) in our Seeds of Abundance catalog!
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Something I never thought of eating!
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Hey @sagescrub thanks for this great post, deffinatly going to try this next year. Is it a specific variety that can be eaten? Ill have to look into this with fresh eyes
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Hi @digitaldan, from my research, all of the dahlia varieties are edible. However, their flavors do vary, ranging from mild to bitter. We've tasted two different varieties we grew in our garden and both had similar flavors - mild with a celeriac note. Hope that's helpful!
You can find more info on edible varieties here: https://www.cultivariable.com/instructions/root-crops/how-to-grow-edible-dahlias/
It is great to hear all of the benefits of this amazing tuber, I have never really heard of the Dahlia tuber until today and I love how you made a kimchi out of it and how it came together easily!
It is sad that we've lost touch with most of these amazing plants, and its probably why I have no idea what it is but it also is great to see you explore all of these amazing yet forgotten plants.
Great post!
Thank you for reading my post on dahlias. Dahlias are more well-known in the floral industry because of their stunning blooms, but definitely forgotten in the food world. I agree it is sad that we've lost touch with a lot of knowledge about plants, their edibility, and how to grow them. There's literally thousands that we no longer eat or use for herbal remedies as they were in the past. It's exciting to re-discover them, and also a bit bittersweet.
Just been looking into these. Is the one you have there yellow gem? That seems to be the one coming up as the best flavour wise.
I got these yellow dahlia tubers from a flower farmer who were just giving away her extras. She said this variety produced so prolifically and performed so well in storage that she had more than she really needed. Unfortunately she lost the tag for them so she doesn't know what they're called. I did a little online research and I think it might be "American Sun" since the blooms are about 6" across but I can't be certain. Yellow Gem is a pompon flower variety so I think it's different...though there seems to be consensus that the plain yellow dahlias are the best ones to eat.
I probably should have searched first. I have now and it is significantly different to yours, but I rather like the pompom shape. It would have been nice to have a variety of colours, but I favour flavour over that!
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Thank you for such comprehensive report about this unusual plant I have never heard it before but reading through your information what Dahlia is good for that sounds really a good idea to use natural healthy product that can help to strengthen our health. My mother loves all natural remedies and herbs, I might ask her, she may be heard about it, because every time when I have something interesting and coming to share to my mother, she already know about it, that is sometimes frustrating. But the idea of such I would say salad, because it looks like salad and garlic with pepper always give their unique taste, I usually use them in different salads too. Thank you for sharing this nice recipe :)
I'm so curious to hear if your mother already knows about dahlias :).
Very nice and so happy you got a nice upvote, well deserved.
Thank you! This was a fun one to write about!
ok I know a lot of steemian told you this, and here i come: I never've heard about dahlia... I mean the flower of course but the tubers not. I'm glad to see how wonderfull could be the imagination of people who like to cook. Thank you for sharing with us the informataion of dahlia and such a wonderfull dish...
Haha, I'm glad this post surprised a lot of steemians and I was able to share some new insights on a favorite flower. I've really enjoyed looking into the history of some of our most common/popular plants. It's fascinating to discover how people might have used them differently in the past. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts :).
That looks delicious. I love spicy foods.
Yup...seems like a sure fire way to get people to try something new :).
No way?! Now that's the kind of flowers I want in my backyard!
Lol. The kimchi-flower kind!
This is such an interesting recipe @sagescrub. The dahlia tubers does look crunchy and I like that you mentioned their texture is like water chestnuts because I love water chestnut :) And kimchi is such a suitable pairing with the crunchiness of the tubers. Thank you for sharing with us this healthy recipe @sagescrub. And I have to say that your photos are very stunning.
Thank you! Yes, that's my thought too. We've been eating it for a week now and it's still very crunchy. Passing the fermenting test for sure. I had a little training in photography and been enjoying putting my camera to use :).
Oo it is still very crunchy after a week? I think you can leave some to experiment how long it can last? Might last for a year too and soon you can make more and sell :) and it is great that you can just harvest from your garden. And I guess dahlias will need to be grown? I don’t think I have seen them sold in the market.
And it is great you get to showcase your photography skill here :)
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