You Can Grow Oca!

Image Gallery Oca’s brightly colored tubers are versatile in the kitchen. ROB CARDILLO

Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) is a long-ignored South American tuber that is now beginning to show up in markets that specialize in unusual Latin American ingredients. Oca (also spelled ocha) is a highly productive perennial plant with waxy, brightly colored tubers that are perfect as a season-extending crop — they’re best harvested from the garden or greenhouse in late December or early January. In its native lands of Bolivia and Peru, oca is second only to the potato in agricultural importance. It is an excellent source of carbohydrates, phosphorus and iron, as well as essential amino acids that promote the health and proper function of muscles, organs, nails, hair, skin and more.

It’s hard to generalize about oca’s flavor and culinary attributes, because there are so many kinds: Some are best eaten raw; others are best boiled, baked or steamed. Sun-dried oca can be eaten like dried figs or stewed like fruit. Oca tubers also can be grilled, fried or candied like sweet potatoes. As for flavor, they vary from potatolike, to chestnut-sweet, to apple and celery. ‘Apricot,’ a new variety from New Zealand, is similar in taste to its namesake. Oca’s cloverlike leaves and yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers are edible and make great additions to salads.

Actually, oca is not new to horticulturists — it was introduced to England, the United States and France as a novelty during the 1830s. Known as “South American wood sorrel” (it’s a cousin of the common wood sorrel), it caused such a stir that enthusiasts held oca parties where entire meals were constructed around these fascinating tubers.

Its most common name is oca, the Spanish spelling thought to be derived from oqa, a word from the Quechua language indigenous to the Andean region and spoken by the Incas. However, in many parts of South America, other names such as quiba, hibias, timbo, apilla and even papa roja (“red potato”) are common, so reading regional cookbooks can be challenging unless you have a South American dialect dictionary on hand. 

OCA’S MANY TRANSFORMATIONS

Because the plant plays a large role in stories about the origin of many South American peoples, botanists at Cornell University and the Field Museum in Chicago analyzed the genetics of oca to determine its source. It appears to descend from two wild ancestors in Bolivia, but has undergone so much genetic alteration due to human intervention and continued selection over the past 1,000 years that the chemistry of the cultivated plants is quite distinct from the wild forms. For example, pre-Incan peoples bred out some of the acids found in the skin of the tubers, altered day length sensitivity and increased the proportion of starches. As a result, there are literally thousands of South American varieties — although most of them don’t have commercial names. In New Zealand, where oca has been cultivated as a commercial crop under the name “New Zealand Yam” since the 1860s, there are quite a few named varieties, and there is a continuing program to develop better ones. It is these New Zealand varieties that we are beginning to see in U.S. produce markets because they adapt most readily to our growing conditions.