Ideas for community gardens < roots

Taro tuber with leaves removed.

The leaves of the taro plant are large and on some varieties are eaten as a green vegetable after thorough cooking.

Peeling a taro stem for cooking. Like other parts of the plant, the stem requires thorough cooking.

TARO

• cocoyam
• dasheen
• edo
• elephant’s ear.

Botanic name

• Alocasia esculanta

Family

• Araceae

Growth form

• large, pointed, broad leaves grow from tuber on stiff stems
• grows to around one metre in height depending on type

Edible part

• large round or elongated tuber
• leaf
• tuber can be made into flour

Caution:

• do not eat any part of the taro plant raw
• cook all parts well to destroy irritating calcium oxylate crystals
• Joy Larkom (Oriental Vegetables, 1991, John Murray, London) says when cooking the young taro leaf to boil twice, discarding the water to remove the acrid flavour.

Cultivation

• grows in wet tropical/ subtropical/ warm temperate (in suitably warm microclimate) climates
• prefers moist soil
• tolerates medium shade or grows in full sun
• will grow in mud
• grows in shallow water
• grown ‘wet’ in paddies in Asia or ‘dry’ in soil.

• by planting the sprouting tuber
• cut off top of tuber with shoot then plant.

Centre of diversity

• probably India
• found throughout the wet tropics – South East Asia, Pacific Islands, PNG, China
• an ancient crop in use for at least 7000 years.

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PAGE UPDATED... Wednesday, 16 January 2002