Edible Dahlia Tubers

[meteor]

Last Christmas my neice gave me a box of vegetable seeds among which was a packet of Suttons dahlia seeds. No ordinary dahlia seeds however , to be grown as edible tubers and endorsed by some fellow called Wong if I remember rightly , I presume some sort of a celebrity. These are the resulting plants, I cannot bring myself to eat the tubers, I reckon they will be pretty small and I prefer the cactus type flowers for cutting anyways. I remember eating dahlia tubers years ago somewhere on my travels, and didn't care for the taste.
Anyone else ever try dahlia tubers and found them palatable.

[Zelenina]

No ordinary dahlia seeds however , to be grown as edible tubers and endorsed by some fellow called Wong if I remember rightly , I presume some sort of a celebrity.

Yes, I gather he's been on telly in the UK. Here's his website. James Wong's Homegrown Revolution Blog

I haven't tried eating dahlias yet, but I might do when I dig mine up for the winter. Although I only have one plant now, so it depends how many tubers it has. It seems that some varieties are much tastier than others. Presumably the ones you got were selected for tastiness, though they look like a very mixed bunch.

[Scarlet]

Lovely show, I love Dahlias. I think the same as you I would prefer to see the flowers rather than dig up the root. That's probably an easy decision for us though as we have something else to dig up, take out of the fridge or purchase from the supermarket. Years ago when times were hard some peeps had little choice. I've never eaten the tubers, I prefer to spend my time and effort into cooking stuff that will be eaten. These 'forgotten' edibles (IMO) are forgotten because they don't really taste that good and so forgotten for a good reason.

[meteor]

Here's his website. James Wong's Homegrown Revolution Blog

That's the fellow, never heard of him before but it sure explains some of the requests I get from some younger members of my family with no gardening experience. Nothing too revolutionary there either, I have grown for years or have tried a lot of the stuff he talks about, albeit he confuses things by giving them his own name. I won't be giving him or his site a second visit.

[meteor]

Lovely show, I love Dahlias. These 'forgotten' edibles (IMO) are forgotten because they don't really taste that good and so forgotten for a good reason.

Thank you Scarlet I couldn't agree more. Reminds me of a buddy of mine big into 70's rock music who is always searching out artist box sets and botlegs with studio outakes, alternative versions etc. I annoy him by saying the reason they were omitted is they were not good enough in the first place.

[Scarlet]

I have grown for years or have tried a lot of the stuff he talks about, albeit he confuses things by giving them his own name. I won't be giving him or his site a second visit.

Ha, with that comment you will be interested in this thread!...I'm not buying any of his seeds either.

[Martin H]

Lovely flowers. They look exactly like what you get if you collect the seed from open-pollinated large-flowered varieties of decorative Dahlias. I wouldn't eat them, I'd just use them as cut flowers.

Random fact of the day: Since Dahlias are named after a certain botanist Mr Anders Dahl, we've been mispronouncing the flower all this time!

[Snadger]

Why don't the plant breeders come up with a wonderfully floriferous tatty? Beautiful and tasty sounds good to me.
Cut flowers on the top and tatties on the bottom!

[Zelenina]

Try Blue Danube spuds, Snadger. They have spectacular blue floriferousness. Well, more spectacular than any other tatties I've seen anyway. The tubers are also a beautiful colour, and quite tasty too

[meteor]

Try Blue Danube spuds, Snadger. They have spectacular blue floriferousness. Well, more spectacular than any other tatties I've seen anyway. The tubers are also a beautiful colour, and quite tasty too

Being a Sarpo variety they are blight resistant too,so a win situation all round. Well the tubers are blight resistant,I grew blue danube in trials this year and the foliage got blighted, I didn't cut back the haulms and the tubers were fine when I harvested them.
Haven't tasted them yet as I am working my way through approx 50 different types.

[Zelenina]

Haven't tasted them yet as I am working my way through approx 50 different types.

Hehehe! Sounds like my sort of gardening

Well, in my opinion they're not the equal of Records and Kerry Pinks for flavour. But they're not at all bad, and as you say, much more blight resistant, which is definitely a good thing in Ireland.

I did have quite a good selection of varieties from a trip to England which coincided with the seed potato season and the Ryton Gardens potato day. The baggage control people were rather surprised to find that the strange objects in my luggage were former dog-chew jars filled with small potatoes, but they let them through with no problem.

But now, due to moving house a couple of times, most of them are defunct, so I need to go on another trip to England or Ireland to refresh my supply. Where did you get all yours from?