Just about every Wisconsin kid is able to identify the milkweed plant with its soft, fluffy, white seeds exploding from its pods in fall. And most Midwest kids and adults can recognize the monarch butterfly. In second or third grade, schoolchildren learn that milkweed leaves are the one and only food that monarch butterfly larvae eat. Surprisingly, many parts of the milkweed plant are edible for humans as well.
The early spring shoots, from 6-14 inches tall, are the first edible part of the plant. Collect them before the leaves are fully formed and stems are still tender and break easily when bent. The skin on milkweed stalks toughens before soft interior part of the stems, so it is sometimes necessary to peel off the stringy outside before cooking shoots. Cover young shoots with already boiling water and cook 15-20 minutes until tender, changing the water several times. The first few changes should be fairly quick with just over a minute between each change. Be sure to use already boiling water when making each change, as covering the plants with cold water and bringing them to a boil will fix the bitter flavor. The flavor of cooked milkweed stalks is vaguely like green beans.
Tender young top leaves, unopened flower buds and small, hard young pods are prepared the same way as stalks. Unopened flower buds look like miniature broccoli heads but are less rigid. They are most tender the few days preceding the opening of the flowers. After boiling to tenderness, season with salt and pepper. You can also prepare stalks, leaves or flower buds creamed or topped with melted cheese, or add them to vegetable soup.
When milkweed flowers have fully formed in July, they can be collected and dipped in boiling water for one minute, then covered with batter and fried to make fritters. They can also be fried in oil without batter. Or dice the flowers and toss them into soup, a casserole, pasta dish or stir fry. Before cooking flower buds, check for tiny, newborn monarch caterpillars that may be hiding between the stems and buds.
After flowering, the seed pods begin to form. Pods make a good vegetable when they are under an inch in length. They can be used in stew, stir-fried, or eaten as a cooked vegetable topped with cheese and bread crumbs. Pods should be boiled in salted water with a pinch of baking soda. If they are cooked with meat, the enzymes in the milkweed pods will tenderize the meat.
Slightly larger but still immature pods are best for extracting the soft and sweet pre-silk, also called milkweed white.
To determine if the pods are at the proper stage, pull the pod apart along the line that runs length of the pod. If the pod splits open easily, it is too mature. In an immature pod the seeds inside will be completely white without a hint of brown. The silk will be soft and juicy, not fibrous, and it will be easy to pinch through the bundle of silk or to pull it in half. With some practice, you’ll learn to recognize immature pods by sight. The pods toughen within a few hours after picking so use them as soon as possible.
To prepare milkweed white, open the pods and discard the rind. Boil the white until tender. Milkweed white has a pleasant, mild flavor and chewy texture. When mixed with other foods, it looks and tastes like melted cheese. Add milkweed white to rice, pasta, casseroles and soup.
CAUTION!
- No part of the milkweed plant should be eaten uncooked. It will cause severe stomach and intestinal upset.
- Do not confuse young shoots with those of similar looking dogbane or butterfly-weed, both of which are extremely poisonous. Milkweed shoots are downy-hairy with milky sap. Dogbanes are hairless; butterfly-weed lacks milky sap.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Native Americans used milkweed fibers for cloth and thread, snares, nets, slings, rope and twine. The sap was used to cure warts and for horses’ saddle sores.
- Silky milkweed seeds were used for stuffing and as a substitute for kapok for life preservers and jackets during WWII. Children across the Midwest collected thousands of pounds of milkweed fluff for armed forces in Pacific.
- Milkweed down floats while supporting 30 times its own weight and has a higher insulative value than goose down.
SAVE FOR THE FUTURE
Milkweed shoots and flower buds can be canned in a pressure canner or blanched for three minutes and frozen for future use.
SURVIVAL IN THE WILDERNESS
Milkweed down can be used as tinder for fire starting or for insulation in boots, hats and mittens. The milky sap can substitute for glue. Stalks can be peeled and rolled to release fiber that can be used for weaving ropes or for fishing line.
HELP SAVE THE MONARCHS!
Beginning in the late 90s, monarch butterfly populations began to decrease significantly. Last year the number of monarchs was at an all-time low. It was the third straight year of dramatic decline and now there are about only one-fifteenth as many monarch butterflies as there were in 1997. The recent drop in numbers has been attributed to last year’s drought and the huge increase in farmland planted with herbicide and pesticide-tolerant soybeans and corn which allows farmers to poison and kill the milkweed that supported large monarch populations. Even worse, if the milkweed plants do manage to escape death-by-herbicide, they can cross pollinate with nearby pesticide-tolerant farm crops and become poisonous themselves to the monarch larvae. To learn how you can preserve and provide habitat for monarch butterflies see www.wildones.org/learn/wild-for-monarchs.
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