Harvesting Oka

Friends: One day we spent helping some Otavalans harvest choklo and oka. Choklo is their eqivalent of our sweet corn.. It is coarse, like field corn or sweet corn that has gotten old. Actually I prefer it to the sweet and tender kind. I especially like it grilled on a charcoal grill with melted cheese on it. I have a hard time going past a street vendor grilling choklo. The stalks were 7-8 feet tall, planted in clusters of 3-4 and hilled up to keep the wind from blowing them over. There is plenty of wind high in the andes. Secondary roots form in the hill that give the plants stability. Pole beans are planted at the base that use the choklo for support and run up them. I plan to begin using the same methods in the future, as corn getting blown over has been a problem for me most every fall. Actually the insides of the choklo stalks can be eaten. There is a sweet pith that you chew up and then spit out and keep the sweet juice. The cattle like to chew it up too except they don't spit anything out.

Oka is a tuber about the size and similar in looks to a large iris bulb (large thumb). It is used in soups. Ecuadorians usually have a bowl of soup with every mid day meal (almuerzo). Soups are usually lumpy, with chunks of broken choklo, potatoes, oka and pieces of meat in them. The plants are dug from the ground with a large mattox, about 3 times the size of any I have seen in North America. The mattox is the tool that has tamed the andes. The patchwork quilt of gardens high up in the mountains is all dug with a mattox, and on hills that are 45% and steeper. Where we worked was on a bench, no slope. The rest of the people come along and take the tubers off the plants, while Luis and I went ahead with mattocks. The oka is a low plant. The tall ones in the picture are quinoa. It is a very small seed grain about the size of sesame that grows well in the mountains, is very nutricious and is used largely in that area. It lends itself well to hand harvesting. It is used the same as we use millet.

We harvested about 500 lbs of oka. A little old lady about 4'-6" was getting ready to lift a bag that weighed about 100 lbs and carry it home. I offered to help but she flatly refused. Somebody helped her get it up on her back and picture 3 shows her trekking off the quarter of a mile to her home. It is well she refused my help. I couldn't have done it. It seems that the people who could most benefit from a wheelbarrow can't afford on. We see a lot of stuff getting carried on backs.

The last picture shows Luis, Rasa and Debbie breaking choklo kernels off the older ears, to be used in soup etc. The younger ears will be used like corn on the cob after boiling for two hours.