(Untitled)

[helen99]

I have a field full of wild carrots (Queen Anne's Lace) outside my house, and so was wondering if anything tasty could be made from them. They're a relative of regular carrots, and not that different in taste, apparently. This recipe came up when I did a search

Comments

[helen99]

Yep. Wild food gathering is pretty much like edible mushroom gathering. One mistake and you can get very sick or dead. The following is an excerpt from http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/queen.html concerning the resemblance to water hemlock. I don't have info about its resemblance to wild parsnip yet (will look that up when I get back from work). I don't think I have noticed any single red flower in the center of my "Queen Anne's Lace", so I will definitely look at it closer. Anyway, here's the excerpt:

"Extreme caution must be used when collecting wild carrots; they closely resemble poisonous water hemlock (cicuta maculata), poison hemlock (conium maculatum) and fool's parsley (aethusa cynapium), all of which can be deadly. It was poison hemlock, that Socrates was compelled to take. Fortunately, there is a simple way to tell the difference.

Both poison hemlock and fool's parsley smell nasty; just roll some leaves between your thumb and forefinger, and smell.

Wild carrot, especially the root, smells like (you guessed it) carrots. Also, the stem of the wild carrot is hairy, and the stem of poison hemlock is smooth.

The first year leaves of the carrot on the left and the leaves of Hemlock on the right.

Unrelated to the native evergreen hemlock tree, poison-hemlock can be deadly; it has gained notoriety through its use in the state execution of Socrates.

Poison-hemlock can be confused with wild carrot (Daucus carota, or Queen Anne's Lace), as with many other members of the parsley family that resemble it. While poison hemlock is similar to wild carrot, their differences are numerous. Poison-hemlock has smooth hollow stalks with purple blotches and no hairs on its stems. It can get quite tall, sometimes up to 8 feet or higher. It produces many flower heads in a more open and branching inflorescense. In contrast, wild carrot usually has one red flower in the center of the flower top and is usually about 3 feet tall, or less. Poison hemlock starts growing in the spring time, producing flowers in late spring, while wild carrot produces flowers later in the summer.

Queen Anne's Lace is also considered toxic. The leaves contain furocoumarins that may cause allergic contact dermatitis from the leaves, especially when wet. Later exposure to the sun may cause mild photodermatitis. Carrot seed is also an early abortifacient, historically, sometimes used as a natural "morning after" tea."

So yeah - very extreme caution when wild food gathering. Still, I think it's useful knowledge to have, survival wise (like in case the shops aren't available like what happened during Katrina and such).