How to Identify Indian Potato

Wapato, or Indian potato, grows throughout North America and has been harvested for food for hundreds of years. Some hobbyists wade for wapato from fall to spring, seeking their delicate, yet familiar taste. Its abundance in wetlands, as well as its similarity to the Idaho potato in flavor and cooking methods, make wapato an important plant for wilderness survival. Read on to learn how to identify Indian potato.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Find a rich hardwood forest, preferably with moist soil, swamp or ponds. Wapato grows well in soil that is submerged in water for much of the year.
2. Look for a plant growing from the muck with green leaves shaped like arrowheads. The plant may have small white flowers with a yellow center. These showy flowers are roughly a half inch in diameter.
3. Carefully disturb the roots from the soil. The roots and the stalks of the plant are fragile, and will detach from the tuber of the plants if handled too roughly. If you are lucky and gentle enough, the tubers may float to the surface if underwater.
4. Gather the Indian potato. They are small, sometimes about a cm in diameter, so the more you can gather, the better.
5. Boil the tubers well in fresh water. This step is important to kill any harmful organisms that live in the stagnant water in which wapato grows. Also, boiling them will remove the bitterness of the raw potato.
6. Eat the tubers as you would any other potato dish. It will even have a similar flavor to the potatoes you are used to eating.

Tips & Warnings

• When eating any wild plant, positive identification is essential to prevent poisoning.