So the theme this month is "origins of city names"! Last week my neighbor comes running over to tell me about a program by some neighbor down the way on the origin of the name Topeka. She said, Topeka is an indian word for "a good place to dig potatoes" When I moved here I heard Topeka means "a good place to grow potatoes". I sort of thought, "highly unlikely, the plains indians didn't grow potatoes". My neighbor explains to me that the potato that was referred to was the prairie potato or better known as the prairie turnip - scientific name Psoralea esculenta. Now it all made sense. This member of the bean family has an enlarged root that was a main staple of the plains Indians.
I've tried growing it with little success. Seems it only does well when growing in its native habitat. For all you S. Dakotans, it is found across the state of SD too.
What is also interesting about Topeka is that there is also a Topeka, IL and Topeka, IN. The Kansa indians were located from there. So now i wonder if those were the good places to grow potatoes and the city of Topeka, KS just inherited the name.
Here is the link to the story.
http://www.barbburgess.com/research-topics/prairie-potato-topeka/topeka-s-roots-the-prairie-potato
3 comments:
I ate some for the first time last year. There were a bunch growing in this in-the-process-of-being-developed subdivison I was living in south of Rapid City. I found them tasty. I felt guilty, though, that I picked some to try in a stew, but never got around to it. Once you pick them, they're gone. More like picking a carrot than digging a potato.
welcome back botanyboy, and thanks for sharing all this information about topeka and prarie taters! i have missed you and all your plant knowledge.
I've never tried them, but tried growing them with little success. I'm glad to be back. I hope someone found my info intersting.
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