How to cook taro
Information for taro in our free cooking ingredients collection.
Taro
Taro is a barrel-shaped tuber or corm with thick, brown, shaggy skin and fibrous, gray-white to lilac flesh. Its length ranges from about 5 inches to a foot or more, and it can be several inches wide. Its starchy, rather dry flesh is acrid and actually toxic when raw, but after cooking it is safe to consume and has a somewhat nutty flavor, similar to that of potatoes or water chestnuts.
Family - Araceae
Scientific name - Colocasia esculenta L. Schott
Common name - taro
Cooked taro root is a good source of vitamin B6 and fiber
Cooked taro leaves are high in vitamin A and vitamin C
Varieties
More than 300 varieties of taro are cultivated around the world, both in water and in soil, and vary considerably in color and taste. The two varieties of taro that are most important for food production are the globulifera, also called dasheen, which produces a large number of crisp, easily cut tubers (or corms), and the antiquorum, whose corms are tougher and more spongy.
Origin and botanical facts
Because taro is an important part of many Asian diets and rituals, the tuber may have originated somewhere on that continent. Whatever its geographic origins, it is most likely one of the oldest food plants. As early as 2000 B.C., taro was brought from southeast Asia to the Pacific rim and northern Asia. Taro is believed to have been brought to Hawaii between 400 and 500 A.D. by the first Marquesan and Tahitian settlers. According to Hawaiian tradition, taro is the staff of life. Taro also was carried westward to Arabia and was an important crop in the Nile Valley by 500 B.C. Today, taro is a staple in the diets of the people of West Africa, the Caribbean, and the Polynesian Islands. It is grown throughout tropical and subtropical Asia and the Pacific and in parts of Africa and the Americas.
Taro is a succulent perennial plant that ranges in height from about 20 inches to 6 feet. Young corms develop as off-shoots of the main corm and can produce new plants. Although taro is generally regarded as a bog plant, it can grow in a variety of environments from dry ground to wetlands and can tolerate lighting conditions ranging from deep shade to bright sunlight. Because taro seeds and seedlings do not survive well and the plants rarely flower, propagation is done primarily by planting side corms or by cutting off and planting the top of a large tuber with its shoot.
How to cook taro
Taro roots must be cooked thoroughly to neutralize the toxic calcium oxalate crystals they contain. The most well-known use of taro is from Polynesia and Hawaii, where it is boiled, pounded into a paste, strained, and left to ferment into a potent brew called poi. Taro also can be peeled and cooked like potatoes. The young, unopened leaves of the taro plant are also edible and can be cooked and eaten like mustard or turnip greens.
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