Wood sorrel is an edible wild plant with a wonderful lemony, tart flavor. We use it often as another natural addition to salads. In Dr. James Duke’s Handbook of Edible Weeds, he notes that the Native American Kiowa people chewed wood sorrel to alleviate thirst on long trips, the Potawatomi cooked it with sugar to make a dessert, the Algonquin considered it an aphrodisiac, the Cherokee ate wood sorrel to alleviate mouth sores and a sore throat, and the Iroquois ate wood sorrel to help with cramps, fever and nausea.
The fleshy, juicy edible tubers of the oca have long been cultivated for food in Colombia and elsewhere in the northern Andes mountains of South America.