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Indian potato†
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
any of several tubers used as food, especially by the Indians, as the wapatoo.
See: wapatoo
Quotations
1843
[Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty fare with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato, the wild onion, and the prairie tomato.]
1912
Indian potato. (1) The groundnut (Apios apios). (2) A western name for the squirrel corn (Bikukulla canadensis).
1927
She taught them to distinguish the small, pinkish-white flower of the Indian potato, whose root, when eaten raw, is somewhat the flavour of a chestnut, and is highly prized by the natives for its food value.
1947
There had been but little else discussed when the Cowichans met that autumn on the Saan-a-sant (Pitt) River where the Katzies were hosts each year during the digging of Indian potatoes, amid great festivity.