Mary Sue's request to flag "off-topic" posts in the subject line is a valuable one; I will try to remember to do that as a courtesy to more focussed readers. However, I hope people don't stop posting these very rich (and yes, meandering) posts about tangential plant topics. I find them very enriching, and frankly not really off topic. As other posters have mentioned, there is a deep link between bulbs and food. There were also connections between cinnamon (one of our other food digressions) and fighting fungus on bulbs. Who knows what sort of connections there might be as we explore related topics? They may come back to things that even interest the more focussed readers. The food discussion led to a discussion of rare locally-endemic agaves that were probably human-created species. Heck, that is amazing!!! It makes one want to think harder about a possible human hand in the evolution of edible geophytes like some Andean Oxalis.
So I beg the moderators to please let those weird yet erudite posts keep coming (properly flagged, of course)...
Lou