The New Zealand yam

The selection at the farmer's market was kind of sparse this weekend, so I took a thorough look through the produce section at the grocery store.   On the top shelf was a cardboard box filled with these bad boys.  I did a double take, because my first thought was 'OMG tropical grubs'.    There was no label on them to help me out.  A fruit?  Some sort of spice?  Maybe a tuber.  Well, that's what Google is for, I thought, and I put one in my basket.

It rang up on the receipt as 'Yam, $0.38'.  Googling told me that they are New Zealand Yams.  Only called that within NZ, though... the rest of the world would call them oca.  They're a type of potato, one of the thousands of varieties eaten throughout Peru.

I boiled my oca up in a little salted water.  It sloughed off its skin as it cooked (Eek!  it IS a grub!) and also lost its brilliant red color, ending up a golden pink.  Its texture was potato-like, but slightly sweeter.  Maybe like a rutabaga, except pleasant.  Its ends, which were a little more red than the rest of it, had a tangy flavor.