[FiB]

The pond in our garden is festooned with wild watercress - I do recon we are in a liver fluke likely area so wont be eating it raw (boo) but wanted some reasurance that the fluke larvae are killed by cooking and how long (I tend to put watercress into soups etc just for the last minute but worried that that may not be enough)..  If the risk was just an upset stomach or something temporary, ID be more experimental but I do not want to dice with liver fluke!!   Thanks all.

[chairmanphil]

yeah cooking kills it no problem, but be careful about cross contamination in the sink and colander or sieve you use to wash it. i always use a little boiling water and clean the sink after. but nothing beats the taste of wild watercress!  do you need a recipe lol?

[FiB]

Thanks Phil, and always love a new recipe.  After flicking through my recipe books tho, I usually end up having to play 'Reday Steady Cook' with what I can find  !!!  Tonights ingrediants are:  Ham stock from freezer, some dodgey looking carrots, an onion or 2, spuds (also a little past their best) and now watercress! Sadley no celery.  I ought to find some way of freezing it, cause thats a soup ingrediant I'm always short of.

[chairmanphil]

Thanks Phil, and always love a new recipe.  After flicking through my recipe books tho, I usually end up having to play 'Reday Steady Cook' with what I can find  !!!  Tonights ingrediants are:  Ham stock from freezer, some dodgey looking carrots, an onion or 2, spuds (also a little past their best) and now watercress! Sadley no celery.  I ought to find some way of freezing it, cause thats a soup ingrediant I'm always short of.

if you are missing celery try some hogweed, not the giant stuff but normal hogweed tastes like celery. better cooked mind you and it is everywhere. love a bit of free hedgerow. i will take a pic later and post it for ya so you know which plant i am on about.

[SallyintNorth]

I was told to boil water for 10 minutes to kill any fluke that might be in it...  I don't know if that is necessary or whether a minute or two would suffice : it was a botanist, mad keen on wild food, who told me, though.

if you are missing celery try some hogweed, not the giant stuff but normal hogweed tastes like celery. better cooked mind you and it is everywhere. love a bit of free hedgerow. i will take a pic later and post it for ya so you know which plant i am on about.

I feel like a killjoy today, with my words of caution...  but there are gazillions of plants in this family, some edible, some not so and some really rather poisonous - and all very very similar to each other, and I personally am fairly sure that some of them can hybridise too. 
The above botanist never ate hogweed for these reasons; too easy to get the wrong one and make yourself ill, or worse.  (Some of the differential identification techniques involve miscroscopes and cell structure, I seem to remember...)  She had sweet cicely growing in her garden though, and we all loved that.   

The Richard Mabey book, Food for Free, is excellent in helping you know what you can safely identify correctly and eat, and how to rule out similar alternatives - and the risks if you get it wrong.

[chairmanphil]

well the stuff in the back of the farmers field is fine! 

[RUSTYME]

Bugger !!
I pick water cress out of the river, shake the water off and eat it !
What are the symptoms of liver fluke infestation ?
 Joint pain ? General fatigue ? Lower back pain ? Slow ,  painful , certain death ?
 Never given it a thought !
Better get me will made .

[chairmanphil]

it is a problem when cattle are feeding and drinking upstream. don't know the symptoms as have never got it!

[FiB]

... or if your in an upland area like me where sheep s**t is everwhere and the stream is runoff from all that  (and the sheep commonly get or have liver fluke) !  I googled symptoms and ... are you yellow Rusty?  Hopefully not.  Apparently if you nip the tips above the high waterline you're Ok as the larvae cant leave the water (if indeed they are present) (but a bugger to tell if water levels have dropped).  Rusty I used to eat it raw from wild too until the river Cottage wild food guy put fear of god into me re liver fluke!  Thanks all.

[RUSTYME]

Cheers , not yellow , more  death green !
Plenty of sheep round here too !
I won't eat it raw again from the river, just in case.  But i will grow some on the veggie plot instead .

[tizaala]

And don't forget the amoebic disentry also.
Watercress ,potato and jerusalem artichoke soup served cold on a hot summer's day, delicious

[Sylvia]

Fluke is passed on by very little snails so, if your watercress crunches, spit it out

[chairmanphil]

cool! now we know! 

[Mel]

Oh Yummy

[shetlandpaul]

death is extreme for a horrid green weed. not worth the risk either buy it or try diffrent greens. after all liver transplants are pretty pricy.