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Camas Root
Appears in
Published 2004
Two species of camas, the common Camassia quamash and the less common C. leichtlinii, grew profusely in the grassy meadows of the Pacific Northwest. Explorers such as Meriwether Lewis noted that the bulb resembled an onion and had a sweet taste. A member of the lily family, the edible camas is an herbaceous perennial with large, glutinous bulbs covered with a membranous brown skin. It was a staple food of the Indians, who considered camas plots valuable personal property.
To distinguish the blue-flowering edible camas from the white-flowering death camas, which grows in the same areas, Indian women harvested the bulbs during or soon after flowering. A three- or four-foot-long hardwood stick, sharpened at one end and fitted with an antler horn handle, was their digging tool. After gathering a large quantity, the women layered a rock-lined steaming pit with branches of such plants as salal, moss, camas, and dirt. Water poured into a hole furnished the steam. When cooked, the camas was soft, blackish, and sweet. It could then be molded into cakes and baked in the sun or on heated stones to preserve it for later use. This prolonged cooking process, lasting one to three days, depending on the quantity, breaks down the long-chain sugar inulin and makes the bulbs more digestible. A communal feast celebrated the camas harvest.