Should I grow it or eat it?

Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net
Wed, 21 Jul 2004 08:15:33 PDT
Judy Glattstein wrote:
>Yesterday I was at an upmarket grocery store called Wegmans. In the produce
>department they had some interesting bright red waxy looking tuber-like
>things with an odd not quite bumpy texture, about the size of Russian Banana
>fingerling potatoes. Grown in New Zealand, native to Mexico where it was
>eaten by Incas and Aztecs (at least according to the sign over the bin.)
>Nothing loathe, I bought some oca.


You found oca!!!!!!!

I pestered a Bolivian friend for years to bring me some from home. 

I've never seen it, much less grown it. But I doubt that it will do well
here - for the same reasons the early strains of quinoa didn't. 

Has anyone noticed (of course they have, but I meant that rhetorically) the
radish-like storage roots formed by Oxalis deppei? I've long suspected that
these are Mexican vegetables, and I note that it has a synonym, O.
esculenta, which supports that view. One odd thing about those radish-like
structures: they don't last long once the bulbs are dug.

If oca is in the grocery stores, can Lilium bulbs and Tropaeolum be far
behind?   The global grocery store is getting very interesting!

Jim McKenney
jimmckenney@starpower.net
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where we are probably too
low on the altimeter to keep oca happy.  


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