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.