What is an oca vegetable?
The marvelous Peruvian oca tuber is a small winter vegetable with a big history, grown in the Andes for centuries. Sweet yet slightly tangy, it offers a satisfying crunch when raw or slightly cooked. Traditionally boiled or roasted, oca is delicious and nutritious, ideal in soups and stews, even desserts.
Are oca poisonous?
The leaves are good at suppressing weeds as well. Although the tubers are smaller than potatoes, they have a waxy skin and are easy to clean and I never bother to peel them. Potato tubers go green in light and produce the poisonous glycoalkaloid solanine but Oca tubers can be stored in the light.
What do oca taste like?
What do oca tubers taste like? Unlike potatoes, oca tubers can be eaten both raw and cooked. When they’re raw, they have a fresh lemony flavour with a crisp, crunchy texture similar to that of a carrot. The skin is edible too and can be left on when raw.
Are oxalis tubers edible?
Wood sorrel has a long known history of culinary use in ancient cultures. One species native to the Andes, Oxalis tuberosa, has been cultivated for its edible tubers since pre-Cololumbian times.
How tall does an Oxalis tuberosa plant grow?
Oxalis tuberosa is a herbaceous perennial plant growing 45cm or more tall from a tuberous rootstock. The stems are at first erect, but become more prostrate later [ http://ecocrop.fao.org/ecocrop/srv/en/home 0 Basic information on a wide range of useful plants, plus details of environmental needs where available. ].
What are the tubers of the Oxalis plant called?
These tubers are known as uqa in Quechua, oca or cubio in Spanish, New Zealand yam and a number of other alternative names. The plant was brought into cultivation in the central and southern Andes for its tubers, which are used as a root vegetable.
When was Oxalis tuberosa first introduced to Europe?
Oca was introduced to Europe in 1830 as a competitor to the potato, and to New Zealand as early as 1860. In New Zealand, oca has become a popular table vegetable and is simply called yam or New Zealand yam (although not a true yam ).
How many species of Oxalis are there in the world?
Oxalis /ˈɒksəlɪs/ (American English) or /ɒksˈɑːlɪs/ (British English) is a large genus of flowering plants in the wood-sorrel family Oxalidaceae comprising about 570 species.
