Taro (Yu) in Taiwan
Everyone has heard the Taiwanese folk song “The Sky is Dark”! “The sky is dark, it’s about to rain, the grandpa raised his hoe to dig taro; dug, dug, dug, dug, got a suan-liu-kóo (loach), i-ya hey-de it’s really interesting! grandpa wants to cook salty, The grandmother wants to cook bland, and the two of them get into a fight and break the pot! I-ya hey-de long-dong xing-dong xiang, wahaha.” The grandpa and grandma in the song broke the pot in fighting to cook taro salty or bland! Indeed, taro can be cooked sweet or salty, but now when it comes to taro in Taiwan, besides hot pot, the easiest thing to think of is custard rolls and taro shortcakes! When I was a child, the only memories of taro were sweet taro soup and sweet taro puree. Although taro seems to be just a snack in our lives, for the aborigines of Taiwan, taro was once an important staple food!
Taro is also known as ōo-á in Taiwanese or squatting owls in ancient times. It is a perennial herbaceous monocot of the Araceae family and also the most widely cultivated edible plant in this family. The taro was called squatting owls in ancient times, but how did it change its name later? According to Xu Shen’s “Shuowen Jiezi” in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was renamed “Yu” (“Yu” meaning big) because its leaves and “roots” (corms) are very large. The original name “Squatting Owl” still describes its big corm, which looks like a squatting owl! The English name taro is derived from Tahitian or Maori.
The earliest place to grow taro in the world may be the Kuk Swamp in New Guinea around nine thousand years ago. Due to the extremely low protein content (only 1.5 grams of protein per 100 grams), the local aborigines could not use taro as a staple food to develop into an agricultural society. In addition, its corms cannot be stored for a long time, and the taste is not pleasing for everybody’s liking. Therefore, after the sweet potato followed the Spanish to the Philippines and then to New Guinea, the taro gradually abdicated from the role of staple food. China has cultivated taro for more than two thousand years. As for the aborigines of Taiwan, they may have cultivated taro as early as 2,500 BC.
All plants collectively referred to as taro can be classified into five genera, the most common are taro and the millennium taro; except for the millennium taro, all of the others originated from India, Bengal and southern China in the Old World. The so-called taro is actually its corms. In addition to the corms, the petiole (taro “stem”) and leaves can also be eaten, but no one in Taiwan seems to eat the leaves. All tissues of taro plants produce spicy mucus, which contains oxalic acid crystals. When peeling taro, hands are often irritated by the mucus, but this can be avoided by wearing gloves.
Wild taro is originally an aquatic plant. After human domestication, it can be grown in dry land. Generally speaking, it is divided into mother taro and baby taro according to the size of the corm: mother taro (above one catty) includes betel nut heart taro, Kaohsiung №1, noodle taro, and millennium taro; baby taro is also commonly known as “taro baby” or “baozi Taro” (literally meaning mother taro with babies), including red bud taro, dog’s hoof taro, and Kaohsiung №2 are common in Taiwan. Mother taro has fine texture, strong aroma and better quality. If divided by the way of planting, it can be divided into water taro and dryland taro. The yield of water taro is relatively high, but because it needs sufficient water, it cannot be planted everywhere; dryland taro takes a longer time to be matured. In the early days, the aborigines mainly cultivated dryland taro, but now Taiwan mainly cultivates water taro. Among all the varieties of taro in Taiwan, the betel heart taro is the one with the longest cultivation history, the widest area and the most famous variety. Taiwan’s main taro producing areas are Taichung, Miaoli, Pingtung, and Kaohsiung, which together account for three-quarters of the nation’s production. The most famous taro producing areas are Taichung Dajia and Kaohsiung Jiaxian. Jiaxian is even more famous for its “Taro Ice Cube.”
Taiwan taro matures around October and November each year. When the taro matures, related activities are held in Lieyu Township in Kinmen County and Tongluo Township in Miaoli County. The country with the most taro production in the world is Nigeria, China is second, Cameroon is third, and Taiwan is the 22nd.
Although taro was one of the staple foods of the aborigines of Taiwan in the past, most of the taro in Taiwan is currently eaten as dessert. However, from taro sweet soup, sweet taro puree, to taro ice cube, taro shortcake, Japanese-style taro custard rolls, taro never really left the table, just showed up in a different way. In addition, the steamed “ōo-kué-khiau”(芋粿曲) made from taro and rice, shallots, dried shrimps, etc., has a chewy (“QQ” in Taiwanese) texture. Compared with other soft “kue”(cake), it has a different flavor! Taro stems (the petioles of taro leaves, commonly known as taro stalks) are also vegetables on the table. After the taro stems are peeled off, they can be braised and stir-fried. You can stir-fry them with shredded ginger, cherry shrimp, and bean paste. The taste is a bit like eggplant.
Speaking of taro, did you think of calla lily? Calla lily and taro are both plants of the Araceae family, but calla lily is not edible! Calla lily is a perennial plant of the Zantedeschia genus (Zantedeschia aethiopica), which was introduced from the Netherlands in the early 1990s. In addition to the production of cut flowers in recent years, the “Bamboo Lake Calla Lily Season” also kicks off in late March every year when the calla lily of Zhuzihu Lake is blooming; tourists are vying to pick the calla lilies in the field, take photos, and leave precious memories.
