(Colocasia esculenta var. esculenta — Family Araceae)
Taro root, dasheen, eddoe, elephant’s ear, arvi leaves, West Indian kale, cocoyam/old cocoyam, coco, colocasia
malanga/malanga isleña (Latin America), satoimo (Japanese), woo tau (Chinese), gabi (philippines) arbi/arvi/ patra (Indian)
Taro belongs to a family that has over 100 genera and 1,500 species which grow mainly in the tropics. Taro is the most important member of the family.
Others are dasheen (var. esculenta)
and eddo (var. antiquorum).
Another type of taro is called the Cypriot colocasia.
It is a large tuber that grows a characteristic, easily identifiable stump.
Another close relative is tannia/malanga (Xanthosoma sagittifolium).
The best way to tell tannia and taro apart is to examine where the leaf is attached to the stem. The tannia stalk starts at the base of the leaf blade, while the taro stalk starts further toward the center of the leaf.
Since taro is a staple food, it is common for it to have hundreds of names. In 1999, the UN listed forty-four countries that grow taro, and the University of Hawaii listed eighty-five known cultivars.
Botanically speaking, the taro “root” is really a corm, a thickened, underground stem of certain plants, resembling bulbs. The smaller taro, or eddo, is popular in Caribbean and West African cooking, but wearing gloves when peeling is a necessity as it can irritate the skin. It can then be baked or boiled.
Breeding has reduced the calcium oxalate levels in the skin of these tubers, but it is still wise to use gloves when handling them. Cultivated varieties are usually the size very large potatoes, roughly top-shaped, and circled all over the surface with rough ridges. There are many lumps and spindly projecting roots.
The skin is brown; but inside the flesh may be white, pink, or purple. Some varieties produce small subsidiary cormels of the same shape of the parent. In the West Indies, these smaller cormels are called “eddos”, which comes from the African word for any taro. The main central corm, is referred to as “dasheen”, a creole name supposedly adaped from the French whose erroneous reference to the Chinese, was never corrected.
Taro is the common name designating all species of C. esculenta, but it always refers to the starchy material obtained from the tubers of this species.
Cocoyam is a non-specific term applied to various tuberous plants grown to provide shade for young cocoa plants (Theobroma cacao). Generally, cocoyams are considered to be either a variety of taro or a variety of tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium). Tannia is an aroid that bears tubers resembling the taro. Africans distinguish the two by calling the former “new” cocoyams and the latter “old” cocoyams. The reason for this is that taro was grown long before tannia was brought over from the New World.
Dasheen is a name that designates the esculenta variety, and usually indicates both the main tuber (corm) and the side tubers (cormels). The name comes from “de Chine” (from China), from where the root was imported following a competition organized by the Royal Geographical Society to find a cheap food source for the slaves on West Indian sugar plantations.
Eddoe is the name applied to the antiquorum variety which usually has a small main tuber and many side ones. Since it is often difficult to distinguish between dasheen and eddoe, the name taro is used for both.
Taro has likely been cultivated longer than wheat or barley, and goes back some 10,000 years. It is said to have been first grown in India on terraces where rice now flourishes.
Although we now think of taro as being the staple of Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Hawaii, it should be noted that taro was prevalent in the Mediterranean long before the potato made an appearance.
Taro was well-suited to primitive agriculture. If the root was dug up and the top cut off in one piece to remove the leaves and thrown away, it would often survive to become a new plant.
Taro also grows quickly; and, in the right climate, can produce three small or two large crops every year.
Eddoes last longer than the dasheen in storage because the tops are not cut off. Varieties that produce cormels are considered to have a superior flavour and texture.
Dried taro was essential for survival on long journeys that the Polynesians made from Southeast Asia to the Pacific Islands, which took place about the change from BCE to CE. These long open-boated voyages also managed to keep alive slips and cuttings of more than 100 plants including taro, breadfruit, yams, and coconut palm.
Taro was taken to China, probably from India, very early on as it was well-established by the Han dynasty. Taro is mentioned on one of the bamboo slips found in the tomb of the Lady Tai at Ma-wang-tui, whose body and silks were remarkably preserved. With her were buried many foods and 312 inscribed bamboo slips listed things that were not represented among the grave goods, but did give information on how to cook certain dishes.
The Chinese use of the taro varies between two varieties. The large corms (betel-nut taro) is braised or steamed. Similar treatment is given to the cormels but in Guangdong, it is more common to boil, peel, and eat them out of hand.
Taro is loaded with nutrients, much more so than the potato. It is an excellent source of fiber, vitamins C and E, potassium, magnesium, and folate. The Tahitian variety is even more nutritious.
In Hawaii and Polynesia, taro is boiled, mashed, and fermented and then served as a paste called poi. In many regions, the large leaves and tender stalks are also eaten as a vegetable; but, because they contain high amounts of oxalic acid, they require thorough boiling in several changes of water to render them safe for consumption. After this, they are said to have a pleasant flavour.
In the US, taro is sold in two forms. One is represented by large, barrel-shaped, often shaggy, ringed and ridged corms. Their exceptionally dense flesh is rather like a coconut compressed with potato, and may be cream, white, lilac-gray, pinkish, marbled or speckled with chocolate coloured fibers. The cooked flavour is reminiscent of a coconut and potato mixed with a little chestnut.
The second type is represented by the little cormels, often called eddoes or Chinese taro and, sometimes designated as a subspecies or variety (antiquorum). These have various shapes like tops, kidneys, and crescents with some sprouting nipple-like pink tips which are called red-budded taro. Cooked, they are more moist, bland, and slipperier than the larger types.
Taro has a main cylindrical tuber with fibrous roots and a few side tubers. The upright stem can be six feet tall and topped with large heart-shaped leaved, having prominent ribs on the underside. Cultivated types rarely flower, and are grouped by the colour of the flesh of the tubers that range from pink to yellow. The leaf stems range from green to pinkish purple to almost black. The plants are propagated from their tops and some small sections of the tuber or sucker tubers. The plant can also be grown as a novelty plant producing striking white flowers.
Eddoe
(Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum — Family Araceae)
Eddoe is a variety of taro, a perennial grown as an annual for its edible tubers. In some countries, the name means the smaller cormels around the main corm (dasheen).
Native to India and Southeast Asia, eddoe was first recorded by the Chinese 2,000 years ago, and is now grown throughout the humid tropics. Eddoes flourish in moist soil alongside rivers and stream. The central tuber is surrounded by clusters of smaller tubers which are harvested, making it different from the single-tubered dasheen.
The brown, hairy tubers can weigh up to five pounds. The flesh is usually white; but it can also be yellow, pink, or orange. The taste is similar to a garden potato, but with a pleasant nutty flavour.
Tubers should never be eaten raw as all varieties contain calcium oxilate crystals which disappear when it is cooked.
Eddoes take between five and six months to mature and are harvested when the stems begin to turn yellow and die back. The starch molecules in the tubers are among the smallest in the plant kingdom making them easy to digest. Eddoes can be boiled, baked, roasted, fried, or puréed and made into soup.
There are two varieties of interest.
Euchlora has dark green leaves with violet margins and leaf stems.
Fontanesii produces leaf stems which are dark red-purple or violet. Its leaf blades are dark green with violet veins and margin.
Tannia, yautia, malanga, cocoyam
(Xanthosoma sagittifolium – Family Araceae)
Tannia is often confused with taro. Tannia and yautia are the common names given to the species while malanga is a Latin American name applied to tannia, as well as to other similar tuberous plants of different species.
Tannia is native to the tropical region extending from South America to the West Indies. It is slowly replacing taro because it is more resistant to disease and pests.
Furthermore, Africans have discovered that it is one of the more satisfactory substitutes for the yams required in the preparation of their national dish “fufu”.
Tannia must be thoroughly cooked as some varieties contain high levels of calcium oxylate crystals in the leaves and tubers. The tubers must be boiled for about fifteen minutes in water (sometimes with baking soda added), the water discarded, rinsed, and boiled again in fresh water to rid the tuber of its toxins.
The leaves and shoots are also important staple foods in tropical marshlands and also must be thoroughly cooked to rid them of the toxins. They are very similar to the taro in terms of nutritional content and preparation.
The smaller “daughter” tubers of the tannia plant are eaten while the large “mother” corm is used for animal fodder.
