camas flowers

Some camas flowers, taken at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Camas roots (along with the unrelated wapato) were traditional dietary staples for many Native American tribes of the region. It surprises me a little that, despite the whole foodie/locavore thing that's been so popular of late, I've never heard of anyone trying to put either tuber back on local plates. It probably doesn't help that they're both marsh plants, so cultivation's going to take a bit more work and commitment than, say, heirloom tomatoes would. On the demand side, I'm not sure how many people have heard of either plant or know there's a long tradition of eating them. Despite the whole "eating locally" thing, it doesn't seem like the question of what's actually indigenous to the area comes up very often, except for salmon obviously.



For my part, I don't know where one might obtain camas or wapato roots, and I've never tasted either one, so I can't really give any practical advice here. But I thought I'd toss the idea out there, in the event some ambitious and creative local chef stumbles across this humblest of humble blogs. Or hey, why should chefs have all the fun -- as tubers, they're full of starch and thus (one would assume) fermentable, and distillable. Camas root vodka, anyone?