Eat Yucca

Yucca, also known as Soapweed, Spanish Bayonet, and other popular names, grows in deserts throughout the world. All of the non-woody parts of most yuccas are edible, and the blooms in particular are quite tasty, besides making an interesting addition to salads.

Steps

 * 1) Look for yucca plants which are budding, blooming, or fruiting.
 * 2) Collect the flower petals. This is the most nondestructive way to eat the yucca because the center of the flower can then continue maturing to become the fruit.
 * 3) Eat the petals, buds, or flowers directly from the field, or in a salad (the flowers have a clean, mild taste somewhat reminiscent of snow peas), or cooked into a soup or stew.
 * 4) Harvest the fruits one to three weeks after the plants flower. Just reach up and pull or cut them off. Leave those that would require a ladder to the insects -- it's not worth the risk to life and limb to use a stepladder on desert sands. The longer you wait, the less bitter they will be, but if you wait too long the seeds will dry and become hard, and the seedpods will start to crack open. The photo shows flowers and fruits about to be made into a soup (there's some Anaheim pepper in the pot also). The cut fruits look a lot like okra, but actually have more of a consistency like potatoes when cooked.

Tips

 * Flowers are best eaten raw or lightly steamed. Deep-frying, at least in one case, caused a strongly bitter taste in the flowers.

Warnings

 * Not all yuccas are necessarily edible. It is wise with any unknown plant to use the Universal Edibility Test before consuming even moderate quantities.
 * Some parts of yucca plants can cause diarrhea, which can be quite dangerous in a desert survival situation because it exacerbates dehydration.

Related Tips and Steps

 * How to Test if a Plant Is Edible
 * How to Hunt for Wild Ginseng
 * How to Make Chopsticks from a Yucca Stalk
 * How to Make String from Natural Sources
 * How to Brew Simple Wild Berry Wine
 * How to Identify Wild Flowers
 * How to Live in the Wilderness

Sources and Citations

 * This research was made possible, in part, by a land grant from the City of the Sun though the specifics of the research were not coordinated nor endorsed by COSF.
 * Another first-person account of eating yucca, focused on thick-leaf yucca (whereas this author ate thin-leaf yucca)