Great pignut
Bunium bulbocastanum
root
⚠️ Toxic look-alike
Never eat this plant unless you are certain it is not its toxic look-alike.
It is an umbellifer: it grows with poison hemlock and, in damp places, with hemlock water dropwort, whose spindle-shaped roots are among the most toxic in Europe (convulsions within an hour, often fatal). Great pignut has a single round tuber at the end of a thin root, in dry meadows; the water dropwort has a cluster of fleshy roots whose cut surface turns yellow within minutes. Never dig up anything you have not seen in flower.
If in the slightest doubt, leave it. If you feel unwell after eating it, even several hours later, call Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) or 911.
Small round tubers tasting of chestnut, raw or cooked; its seeds are used like cumin.
- Origin
- Western Europe and North Africa
- Where to find it
- In chalky fields and waste ground in northern France and southern England, where it has become rare.
- Season (United States)
- June to August
- Preparation
- The tubers are washed and peeled; they are eaten raw or cooked for about fifteen minutes.
- Molecules
- In small amounts, not counted Falcarinol · Insoluble fibers
- Did you know?
- Pigs love them: it was also called “earth chestnut”.