A close relative of The rapunzel plant (Campanula rapunuloides). Photo from Wikipedia.

I never suspected that I’d learn something about edible botany by indulging my 3-year-old’s princess obsession, but I have. According to the Brothers Grimm, Princess Rapunzel is named after the cultivated  vegetable of the same name, growing in a witch’s garden. The wording of the story suggested to me that the Grimms’ contemporaries would be familiar with the plant as a vegetable, that it wasn’t a fantastical invented thing. Apparently rapunzel was a popular vegetable in the Grimm’s Europe.

Formally the rapunzel plant is Campanula rapunculus, native from southwestern Asia through central Europe to North Africa. The genus Campanula contains upwards of 500 species of what are commonly called bluebells, bellflowers, or harebells, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. Many if not most of those species have edible flowers, leaves and roots (see links here, here, here and here). The Brothers Grimm don’t specify which parts of the plant were particularly enticing to Princess Rapunzel’s mother.

Our princess, in the Tangled-inspired dress from Santa

Many species in the closesly-related genus Adenophora also have edible roots, leaves and flowers. These genera add a taxonomic family, Campanulaceae, to our list of taxa with culinary species. Campanulaceae joins the sunflower family (Asteraceae) as culinary families in the order Asterales. Rapunzel seeds are for sale, and it can grow in Anchorage, where we will be moving this spring. My little Rapunzel will have to beat the moose to it in the garden next summer. It’s so interesting to me that this was once considered a common, mainstream cultivated vegetable, but now it’s considered a fringe edible plant or something to be “wildharvested.” It’s fun to learn about plants that were once widely cultivated for food but have since fallen out of fashion. Wonder why that is.