arch .... you may NOT come visit, I eat my own hosta young thank you.

*grin*

Your food pictures always makes me happy.

Thanks.

Hostas - edible? Any variety? At what point are they no longer considered edible? How long do you cook them?

dcarch, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this but I always think of you as I pull my dog away from hostas on our walks. Apparently they’re incredibly interesting to dogs. I hope you pick from the back yard!

I wonder if you’re a little behind us. We seem to be well beyond the shoots stage here.

Looks good!

I have HUNDREDS of hosta growing--I have heard they were edible--but what do they taste like??? Can you give us something to compare then to? I also have growing RAMPANT Rakes--a wild onion type plant. They have been slowly taking over my spring garden. Last year a neighbor was on the hunt for them and I was able to GIFT her all she could possibly want...I tried them and found them lacking...so before I dig up perfectly beautiful hosta--do you have more information as to which variety lend themselves to eating better, Blue/variegated/golds ; what they taste similar to....

A taste is worth a thousand words.

Hosta? Edible? Who knew?

I struggle to keep the deer away from them...if I ate them instead it would defeat the purpose.

I tried them the last couple of years but missed the shoot stage this year. From memory they are very bland and at least I think they have a mild asparagus flavor. I cooked them like asparagus; ~3 minutes steamed as I recall.

Had no idea. Looked in yard this morning, no hostas coming up yet.

Looks like dcarch has reached a broader audience through cross-posting. He’s been posting hosta meals each spring for at least a decade. For anyone interested in past discussions and pictures simply search “hosta” within the Cooking Forum.

Our chinese neighbour gave us some shoots yesterday -undulata it looked like- and we shared them for a quick nosh this morning with a gardening friend of ours. Quickly seared on the stove top with a bit of butter and some garlic, yummy... Rather reminiscent of asparagus...

Pieter

Thank you everyone for your nice comments.

Hosta is a common vegetable in Japan:

"----Hostas are edible when young and sheltering when older. ... In fact, the Japanese have been eating hostas safely for centuries. Known as urui, they're commonly boiled, fried in tempura or eaten raw. With a flavor reminiscent of lettuce and asparagus, they can easily be substituted in salads---"

All varieties of hostas are edible, of course I would not eat the very expensive ones. Hostas are tough, the more you cut the more they grow.

FOAS, becareful, I understand that hostas can be toxic to dogs and cats (but not to deer).

To me, they taste like asparagus, and also reminiscent of endive without the bitterness. Pleasantly mild and tender. So wonderful in salads.

Varieties = good health.

dcarch

possibly contaminated produce?

"zinnia

possibly contaminated produce?"

A head of lettuce from the farm, from the picker to packer to shipper to distribution center to trucker to supermarket to store staff to put on shelf, to shoppers who touch everything, to you to the register ------.

Not too long ago, experts told you that face masks are not important. Only very recently, experts found out that air borne virus can get you sick.

So much we are still trying to find out about covid-19.

For me, I can't say that there is no chance that the entire process has no room for contamination to occur.

dcarch

Wow, I never knew. I have a ton of hostas, thanks!

Shoots, stems, leaves and flowers are all edible. Roots might be, but then you are destroying the whole plant. Best either lightly steamed shoots with some sort of sauce/condiment to add flavor, or lightly pickled stems served as a condiment.

Have also had them in soup, but not much flavor. If you want to eat leaves, pick glossy thin leaves, they can be lightly steamed and used as wraps, just like lettuce, or chopped and put in salads. As described above, butter and garlic are great additions, but you can use just about any flavoring. Steamed with celery seed is good, curried is good, you get the idea--like tofu, it's more a matter of what you put with it rather than the hosta itself being the focus.

Dcarch, that's why you wash produce.

":zinnia

Dcarch, that's why you wash produce."

You can wash, but it is simple physics that you can't clean vegetables well. A virus is so tiny, (nano meters) and the surface of vegetables are so full of holes, nooks and crannies. Each hole is like a football field to a virus.

If you want to eat uncooked vegetables and get a better cleaning job done, you can consider using an ultrasonic/ozone vegetable cleaner.

An ultrasonic cleaner uses the force of cavitation to blast away tiny bubbles and dirt and to get into tiny spaces. Ozone can sanitize.

A vegetable ultrasonic/ozone cleaner can set you back around $200.

dcarch

Oh, good lord.

I think I remember that Hosta fluctuans is routinely grown as a food crop in Japan. The prized specimen Hosta for display gardens is Sagae, a beautiful light-margined version of the delicious fluctuans.