Lotus Food
Every part of the lotus found in India (nelumbo nucifera) is edible. Seeds are roasted to make puffs called mahkanas. The plant's roots are ground up to make lotus meal.
Native Americans also used the ground flour of a similar plant, Nelumbo lutea. Thomas Nuttal (quoted by Coffey) made notes in 1821 of the way the Quapaws of Arkansas used the plant. The young leaves were cooked, the tubers baked, the young seeds eaten raw or cooked and the ripe seeds of winter roasted, boiled or ground into meal. Furthermore they extracted an edible oil from the seeds.
You can eat the seeds of yellow pond lily. Moore offers a recipe from an Alaskan herbalist, Janice Schofield, for Pond Lily Popcorn, made by popping 1/4 cup of seeds in 2 tablespoons of oil and flavoring them with butter, nutritional yeast and whatever else you fancy. He comments that it sounds more palatable than the way the Assiniboin and Micmac ate them: fried in bear fat.