Talghouda
Bunium ferulaceum, B. fontanesii
root
⚠️ Toxic look-alike
Never eat this plant unless you are certain it is not its toxic look-alike.
It is an umbellifer, like pignut: it grows with poison hemlock and, in damp places, with hemlock water-dropwort, whose roots are among the most toxic there are (convulsions in under an hour, often fatal). Talghouda has a single round brown tuber at the end of a thin root, in fields and dry meadows; water-dropwort has a cluster of fleshy spindle-shaped roots whose cut surface turns yellow within minutes; poison hemlock has a purple-spotted stem and a mousy smell. 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 dug up in spring, peeled and cooked in couscous or flatbread, in Algeria.
- Origin
- Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia
- Where to find it
- In cereal fields and fallow land on the Algerian high plateaus, from Sétif to Constantine; in spring, it is sold at markets in Kabylia and the Aurès.
- Season (United States)
- March to May
- Preparation
- The tubers are washed, peeled with a knife, then cooked for about twenty minutes.
- Molecules
- In small amounts, not counted Falcarinol · Insoluble fibers
- Did you know?
- Long a food of famine years, it has become a sought-after spring dish again.