Wild Potato Vine, or Mecha-Meck, or Man-of-the-Earth
This root weighed 15 pounds. It grows along roadsides and in open waste lands from Connecticut west to southern Ontario, Michigan, and Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas. Member of the morning-glory family and very close relative of the Sweet Potato.
From a lovely book by Oliver Perry Medsger, Edible Wild Plants (1939).
This one looks a bit like a dog--reminds me of a pet a Jack Kirby monster might have.
2 comments:
Wow, that's an odd root. I wonder who was the first person to pick something like that up and think, "Man, I think I'm gonna take a bite out of this. I mean, I'm so hungry I could eat...this!"
Totally unrelaed, Mecha-Meck would be a cute name for a robot sidekick...
I've just sowed some seeds of these and they're germinating. I look forward to eating them in due course and using them in my wacky root crop breeding project called Radix. Hardier sweet potatoes would be great. http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/
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