[Sca-cooks] taro root

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Thu Dec 31 18:02:52 PST 2009


On Dec 31, 2009, at 8:13 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Adamantius mentioned:
> <<< I have, however, eaten steamed chestnuts in Chinese rice dumplings, various French purees and similarly-flavored starchy foods such as taro root,...>
> 
> Where did you eat taro root?
> 
> The little I know about taro root was from sociology textbooks from grade school about the South Pacific. Quite some time ago, and perhaps as Urtatim says, a bit biased in their writing, being from an American point of view. I wasn't aware of it being available, or eaten outside of that region.

It's eaten all over Asia and Africa, in the Caribbean, and, I'm pretty sure, in South America.

Sometimes the greens are eaten, sometimes the roots, sometimes both (although not, as far as I know, together). The root is used in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific region to make poi, but when cooked fresh is a little like a cross between sweet potato and chestnuts. 

It appears in Chinese dishes braised or steamed with pork belly or goose, shredded and wrapped around a dumpling filling and fried, and shredded and formed into various bird's-nest-shaped shells and fried (to serve things like stir-fried seafood in), and steamed, mashed, seasoned and steamed in a cake, to be fried again, like fried cornmeal mush or polenta.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter



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