Cattails: Natures food and pharmacy store

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• Cat-o-nine-tails, reedmace, bulrush, water torch, candlewick, punk, and corn dog grass. The cattail has almost as many names as it has uses.
  
• - MEDICINAL JELLY The jelly that grows between young cattail leaves was used for wounds, boils and infected skin. This treatment also relieved pain for tooth aches. It kind of like honey! The Chippewa, Ojibwa and Patawatomi applied the ashes from burned cattail leaves and the droplets of sap that form at the plant’s base can be applied to wounds to keep them from getting infected. A  poultice made from crushed cattail roots can be used on cuts, stings, burns, and bruises.
  
• - COTTON WOOL  Cattail seed fluff like cotton balls was used to staunch a wound, and poultices made from crushed cattail roots can be used on cuts, stings, burns, and bruises. Cattails were used by the Dakota, Omaho, Pawnee, and Winnebago who used the fuzz on burns and the pollen like baby powder to prevent chafing.

• - REFRESHING DRINK & a GREAT PICKLE! If you're looking for a refreshing drink harvest and slice the base of cattails and add to water..it tastes like a fresh cucumber water or add vinegar and spices and pressure can until you're ready to eat!  :)
  
• - CHEWING GUM I've read accounts of Frontiers men using cattail fluff being mixed with tallow to make a rudimentary form of chewing gum. (Tallow is the rendered, boiled fat of cattle and sheep both of which were bought over by the English, French and Dutch in the 1600 on wards.)
  
• - ANTI CHAFFING:  The Dakota, Omaho, Pawnee, and Winnebago commonly used the vibrant yellow Cattail pollen as Nature's anti chaffing powder like talcum powder..it's so fine that it's the perfect solution for hot sore skin.
  
• - FLOUR EXTENDER both by harvesting the bright yellow pollen (encase in a bag or bark box and tap so the pollen falls in a contained area and also by drying the rhizomes, grinding and turning to flour this plant provides 2 ways of thickening stews and soups and creating a bannock like bread
  
• - TINDER The fluff is my go to for fire lighting tinder ( love it!)
  
• - BUILDING MATERIALS Cattail leaves were sewn into siding for  Wigwams and were a very common form of shelter. The cattail Typha latifolia L is most used but what ever you have to hand the best for a survival or wilderness situation. Traditional homes were constructed first from poles stuck into the ground and bent into a dome-like shape. More saplings were tied horizontally to the sides, creating a sturdy framework. The outside of this framework was then covered a mat made of the cattails sewn together, (or elm or birch shingles if it was available) Early Europeans commented on how weather-proof these homes were – warmer and drier than the structures made by the more “civilized” settlers.
  
• - PILLOW STUFFING  that wonderful cattail fluff makes an awesome pillow stuffer
  
• - FOOD This dish known as Cossack asparagus,  is when you strip the outer leaves back to the young shoots can be used stir fried or sautéed.
  
• - MORE FOOD Edible rhizomes A great source of starches and carbs which can even be eaten raw if needed, but in my experience a bit of a pain in the butt to harvest, its best to harvest them in the fall as they'll be at peak size and other foliage has fallen away to get more access to the base of the plant.
  
• -MOSQUITO REPELLENT OR TORCH  Burning the brown head of the cattail as a smudge really helps keep the mozzies at bay, it can also be used as a torch.

1. Plant in partial to full sun. Cattails will thrive in a bright location.
2. Provide moist conditions. ...
3. Grow in containers. ...
4. Plant in soil from the water garden or similar soil. ...
5. Fertilize once in early spring. ...
6. Divide occasionally.
7. 7. Grown in Zones 3- 10

 To harvest the tubors, follow a stem several inches down into the mud with your hand, when you feel the stem leading horizontally away from the plant, gently tug, find what direction its going in & carefully pull up. 

If you are wild foraging them near habitation I would be very careful as to where you forage as they deliberately planted near highways and waste areas to absorb water pollutants and are used to clean the area. However in a wild setting you are good to go.  

Cattail roots are said to be the best when picked in Autumn or Winter. That means you're going to spending considerable time up to your shins in cold water or ice trying to dig them out.  I'd recommend harvesting earlier and drying and turning into a flour to bake with later on. Cattail flour has been used as a thickener for soups, stews and for making bread or patties. Cattail pollen and the ground seeds have also been used as a flour bulker too. 

One of my personal favorite things to harvest from cattails is the young shoot or bottom of a mature stem, when diced and added to water it has a wonderfully refreshing cucumber taste. Both of these can also be finely sliced and used similarly to leek or onion.