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| Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott | ||||||||||||||
Taro (from Tahitian or other Polynesian languages), more rarely kalo (from Hawaiian), is a tropical plant grown primarily as a vegetable food for its edible corm, and secondarily as a leaf vegetable. Egyptians and Cypriots know this as kolkas and kolokassi respectively. Its flowers are also eaten. Taro is closely related to Xanthosoma and Caladium, plants commonly grown as ornamentals, and like them it is sometimes loosely called elephant ear. Taro and domesticated Xanthosoma species share substantially the same uses, and several names, including callaloo and coco or cocoyam. Taro may be distinguished as "taro cocoyam" or "old cocoyam". Its scientific name is Colocasia esculenta (synonym C. antiquorum). Esculent is an English word taken directly from Latin and means edible. Taro is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants.[1]
Taro is a traditional staple in many tropical areas of the world, and is the base for making poi in Hawaii. The plant is actually inedible when raw because of needle-shaped raphides in the plant cells. Severe gastrointestinal distress can occur if the plant is improperly prepared for consumption.
| Top Taro Producers - 2005 (million metric ton) | |
|---|---|
| Template:NGA | 4.0 |
| Template:GHA | 1.8 |
| Template:CHN | 1.6 |
| Template:CAM | 1.1 |
| Template:CIV | 0.4 |
| Template:PNG | 0.3 |
| World Total | 9.2 |
| Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[2] | |
Typical of leaf vegetables, taro leaves are rich in vitamins and minerals. They are a good source of thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and zinc, and a very good source of vitamin B6, vitamin C, niacin, potassium, copper, and manganese. Taro corms are very high in starch, and are a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, and manganese. Oxalic acid may be present in the corm and especially in the leaf, and these foods should be eaten with milk or other foods rich in calcium so as to remove the risks posed by ingesting the free oxalic radical especially for people with kidney disorders, gout, or rheumatoid arthritis. Calcium reacts with the oxalate to form calcium oxalate which is very insoluble.
Taro is typically boiled, stewed, or sliced and fried as tempura. The small round variety is peeled and boiled, sold either frozen, bagged in its own liquids, or canned. In China, taro is called 芋头 or 芋頭 (yù tóu in Mandarin; or wu tau in Cantonese) and is often used as an ingredient in niangao, a dense pudding made from glutinous rice flour mixed with mashed taro, and eaten during Chinese New Year.
Taro can be grown in paddy fields or in upland situations where watering is supplied by rainfall or by supplemental irrigation. Some varieties of taro can also be grown away from the tropics, in places such as Korea and Japan. In Korea, taro is called toran (토란) meaning "egg from earth", and the corm is stewed and the leaf stem is stir-fried. The taro corm is called'sato-imo (里芋) in Japanese and supermarket varieties range from about the size and shape of a brussels sprout to longer, larger varieties the size of an adult male's fist.
Taro is extensively used in South Asia. In South India's Kerala state, it is used as a staple food, as a side dish, or as a component in various side dishes. As a staple food it is steamed, and eaten with a chutney of green pepper and shallot onions. The leaves and stems of certain varieties of taro are used as a vegetable in Kerala. A tree-growing variety of taro is extensively used in the western coast of India to make "patrade" or "patrada", literally "leaf-pancake". These are either made like fritters, or are steamed and eaten. Taro is consumed in most of the regions of South Asia. It is called chembu in Malayalam, arvi in Hindi, kesu or kesuvinagadde in Kannada, aalu (अळू) or arukudya in Marathi, alvamande in Konkani, chamagadda or chamadumpa in Telugu, chembu or cheppankizhangu in Tamil, saruwada in Oriya, and kochu in Bengali. Taro is so widely available in India and Bangladesh that its Bengali name kochu can also mean "worthless thing" or "nothing" in sayings.
Taro chips are often used as a potato chip-like snack. Compared to potato chips, taro chips are harder and have a more assertive nutty flavor. They are generally made from upland taro because of their lower moisture content.
Taro production in Hawaii
Taro is usually grown in pondfields called loTemplate:Okinai in Hawaiian. The picture below shows several small loTemplate:Okinai in Maunawili Valley on Oahu. The ditch on the left in the picture is called an Template:Okinaauwai and supplies diverted stream water to the loTemplate:Okinai. Cool, flowing water yields the best crop. Some of the taro plants in the foreground have been harvested and the caretakers are preparing to replant the huli stacked at their feet. These are the top portion of the corm with a short piece of bladeless leafstem.
Typical dryland or upland varieties (varieties grown in watered but not flooded fields) in Hawaii are lehua maoli and bun long, the latter widely known as Chinese taro. Bun long is used for making taro chips. Dasheen (also called "eddo") is another "dryland" variety of C. esculenta grown for its edible corms or sometimes just as an ornamental plant.
The Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service puts the 10-year median production of taro in the Hawaiian Islands at about 6.1 million pounds (2,800 t; Viotti, 2004). However, 2003 taro production in Hawaii was only 5 million pounds (2,300 t), an all-time low (record keeping started in 1946). The previous low, reached in 1997, was 5.5 million pounds (2,500 t). Yet, despite generally growing demand, production was even lower in 2005: only 4 million pounds, with kalo for processing into poi accounting for 97.5% (Hao, 2006). Urbanization has driven down harvests from a high of 14.1 million pounds (6,400 t) in 1948. But more recently the decline has resulted from pests and diseases. A non-native apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) is a major culprit in the current crop declines. Also, a plant rot disease, traced to a newly identified species of the fungal genus, Phytophthora, now plagues crops throughout the state. Although pesticides could control both pests to some extent, pesticide
use in the pondfields is barred because of the clear opportunity for chemicals to quickly migrate into streams and then into the ocean (Viotti, 2004; Hao, 2006).
Taro production in Fiji
Although taro has been a staple of the indigenous Fijian diet for centuries, its growth as a commercial crop can be said to have begun in 1993 when the taro leaf blight decimated the taro industry in neighboring Samoa. Fiji filled the void and was soon supplying taro to the large Polynesian populations of New Zealand, Australia, and Los Angeles in the United States.
Almost 80% of Fiji's exported taro comes from the Island of Taveuni.
Currently, the Taro industry is under threat from the taro beetle, with the Land Resources Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) conducting research into how best to control this pest.
See also
References
- Hao, Sean. 2006. "Rain, pests and disease shrink taro production to record low". Honolulu Advertiser, February 2, 2006, p. C1.
- Stephens, James M. 1994. Dasheen –– Colocasia exculenta (L.) Schott. Fact Sheet HS-592 from a series of the Horticultural Sciences Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. May 1994. edis
- Taro climate at Green-Seeds.com (taro growing methods)
- Taveuni Taro at fijitaro.com (Fiji taro industry history)
- Viotti, V. 2004. Honolulu Advertiser, March 16, 2004.
- Wagner, W. L., D. R. Herbst, and S. H. Sohmer. 1999. Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawai‘i. Revised edition. Vol. 2. Univ. of Hawei‘i Press/Bishop Museum Press. p. 1357.