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[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

[dogemperor]

As long as you've verified you are dealing with Queen Anne's Lace (long story short, it IS one of those wild plants you need to be careful in identifying; poison hemlock looks superficially quite similar...Queen Anne's Lace does have the "drop of blood" flower in the middle whilst hemlock does not) then it IS similar to using domesticated carrots. Queen Anne's Lace tubers tend to be tougher unless you get 'em when they're young, but otherwise you can use 'em as carrots (and it makes good herbal medicine, as you've noted).

[chiashurb]

You also need to make sure it's not wild parsnip, which can cause second degree chemical burns if you 1) get the sap on you, and 2) are exposed to UV light, such as sunlight.

[dogemperor]

This too--wild parsnip is a powerful photosensitiser.

In short, make really damn sure it's wild carrots :3

[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

[rangermorgiah]

This is interesting - thanks! When I was a kid we'd pick them and put them in vases with water and a little food coloring. The white tops would then change and for a kid that was pretty cool stuff.