taro-msg - 4/24/20

Use of the taro plant in period.

NOTE: See also the files: root-veg-msg, potatoes-msg, turnips-msg, armrd-turnps-msg, 23-Ger-Mushrm-art, mushrooms-msg, vegetables-msg, flour-msg.

************************************************************************
NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:35:48 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Posting Menu- Trimaris Spring Coronation

I'm curious, what basis did you use for choosing to fry the taro rather than 
boil it?  Both the Vehling and the Flower and Rosenbaum translations of 
Apicius state in footnotes that the taro was probably boiled.  In examining 
the other recipes in Apicius that call for taro, the ones that connect it 
with a specific cooking method call for it to be boiled.

Bear

<<< *Colocasia- a starchy root similar to potato fried in olive oil with a 
sweet and spicy dipping sauce- Apicius

*Note on the colocasia- this was both surprisingly easy to find and 
surprisingly delicious. It was sold at our local "hippy" grocery store 
(Wards in Gainesville, FL) under its common name, Taro root. I found the 
fact that this plant is an exotic invasive in Florida and I could dig it 
out of the waterways as a public service amusing. The roots are hairy and 
thin-skinned, the size and shape of small potatoes. I peeled them and 
soaked them in cold water, as they oxidize immediately and their sap is 
rather slimy. Then I cut them up in chunks, dried them well, and 
deep-fried them until golden in olive oil. The fried chunks taste like 
starchy potatoes. Delicious! My taste-testers were excited that I was 
going to serve "period french fries" at feast.

Madhavi >>>

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:47:18 -0500
From: <jimandandi at cox.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Cc: maysun at maddcow.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Posting Menu- Trimaris Spring Coronation

Bear-

I fully realize that frying the taro in olive oil was not the traditional Roman way of preparing them, at least not as reflected in this manuscript.

My "inspiration" for this dish is Recipe #322 in the Vehling translation (1936 edition)

In Colocasio

"For the colocasium use pepper, cumin, rue, honey, or broth, and a little oil, when done bind with roux Colocasium is the root of the Egyptian Bean which is used exclusively."

I chose to separate this recipe into two components: the taro root itself and the sauce, which I'm serving on the side for dipping. 

What's the best way to get people to try a vegetable they've never heard of before? Either cook it with bacon or deep-fry it. I chose to deep fry it. This feast is already pushing the boundaries of "weird" for a Crown that is not very adventurous, and if deep-frying a vegetable instead of steaming it is going to get people to step outside of their comfort zones and something new with the flavors of the authentic dish? I'll choose the less authentic manner of preparation. Would I enter it in ArtSci? Nope.

Madhavi

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:45:32 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Taro was Posting Menu- Trimaris Spring Coronation

<<< I fully realize that frying the taro in olive oil was not the traditional 
Roman way of preparing them, at least not as reflected in this 
manuscript.

My "inspiration" for this dish is Recipe #322 in the Vehling translation 
(1936 edition)

Madhavi >>>

I thought that was the case.  I hope you thought to warn your testers that 
your "period french fries" are a personal modification of the Apician recipe 
and should not be confused with  a truly accurate recreation of a historic 
recipe.

Vehling 74 (F&R 68) is probably a more accurate method of preparation. 
However, Davidson connects taro to the Arabic "qulqas" (with a dash above 
the a).  It might be interesting to see if we can find a recipe similar to 
yours in the Arabic texts.

Bear 

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:00:39 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Taro was:  looking for lentil recipe

<<< Wait. Does that mean that the colocasia in Apicius is or isn't Taro root?

There are numerous references to colocasia leaves and sometimes roots in
medieval Indian food descriptions, I thought this was taro, too.

*confused*

Madhavi >>>

You have just stepped into one of the open questions of culinary history.

A number of sources state that C. esculenta was known to the Romans.  That 
it was grown primarily in Egypt (due to the more tropical climate).  And 
that it fell out of use in Europe as the Western Empire dissolved.  In my 
view, Apicius is fairly good evidence of this theory.  Less satisfactory are 
the conflicting descriptions found in various other authors.

Clifford Wright is the primary opposition to the Roman adoption theory.  He 
makes a case for taro being introduced to the Mediterranean by the Arabs 
about the 10th Century.  However, as much as I can determine, he avoids 
Apicius in the presentation of his theory.  Wright is a good source, but 
I've noted omissions is some of his presentations, so I usually approach his 
work very carefully.

It is believed that taro originates in the area around the Bay of Bengal, so the Indian references to taro are probably just that.  From Eastern India, beginning at least 5,000 years ago, it went west to Africa, east to Southeast Asia, and out to the Pacific Islands.  There was a fair amount of Sea Trade from Egypt and the Levant through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf into Southern Arabia, Africa and India during the 1st Milleneum BCE, so it is very possible that taro had reached Egypt before the Roman period. European access to taro would have been cut off no later than 642 CE when Egypt was taken in the Islamic expansion. Apicius is usually considered 1st Century CE, so taro would have been possible.

Prospero Alpini describes taro in his Plants of Egypt, but he's 15th Century and too late to settle this debate.

There is enough to make me think that taro was available and enough to make me question how common it might have been.

Bear 

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:41:58 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] New 544 CE Chinese Recipes

<<< "Taro seed"- what was the original term? Do you mean Colocasia esculenta? 
Because I grow Colocasia esculenta, and it has no seeds. The parts you eat are the root (actually a corm) and the leaves. It's an elephant ear plant.

Madhavi
Trimaris >>>

Taro does have seeds which can be collected when the plant flowers.  There's 
a hybridization project using seed to improve taro cultivars.  You can find 
the manual here, 
http://www.adap.hawaii.edu/adap/Publications/Ireta_pubs/taro_breeding.pdf . 
While they're probably edible, I've never heard of them being used that way.

Indofevillea is a distinct genus of cucurbit.  You can find the botanical 
description for I. khasiana here, 
http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/PDF/PDF19/Indofevillea.pdf .  From what I 
can find, most of the members of the genus are classed as rare or 
endangered.  A new species I. jiroi is known from one plant found in 
Myanmar.

Bear

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:51:37 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Taro appears to originate in SE Asia and spread into India about 5000 BCE. 
It spread from Asia to Polynesia and New Guinea and Africa in pre historic 
times.  It is recorded as being cultivate in Egypt by Herodotus. and shows 
up in later writings including Apicius.  DNA evidence suggests that the New 
World taro is related to the Polynesian.  There's not a lot of information 
about the cultivation and use of taro in the Eastern Mediterranean.

For a brief but informative article on taro try, Vaneker, Karin. "From Poi 
to Fufu:  the Fermentation of Taro," Cured, Smoked and Fermented: 
Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking, 2010, pp. 352-364; 
Oxford Symposium, 2011. 
https://books.google.com/books?id=OTxvBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT353&lpg=PT353&dq=pliny+taro&source=bl&ots=-CGDgUZY2T&sig=tBiV-s5_nokD3vPeSwIwmw-U6zQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7r9X73ZDSAhVmxVQKHbN_D_kQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=pliny%20taro&f=false

Bear

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:12:39 -0500
From: "Jim and Andi" <jimandandi at cox.net>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Re: Taro

Just want to make sure that we refer to the botanical name Colocasia
esculenta, since in the tropics the common name "taro" can describe
different plants.

Madhavi

Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:32:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: <lilinah at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Stefan wrote:
<<< Where and when was taro used in medieval times? I have only a small file on taro in the Florilegium. >>>

Taro, colocasia esculenta, qulqas in Arabic, appears in nearly every medieval Arabic-language cookbook i have seen, including some not yet translated into English, from ibn Sayyar al-Qarraq's 10th c. collection of 9th and 10th c. recipes from Baghdad to 13th c. cookbooks from al-Andalus, to cookbooks from Mamluk Egypt (1270-1600).

Here's a recipe i recently translated from the circa 1226 Andalusi cookbook "Fadalat al-Khiwan fi Tayibat at-Ta'am wa al alwan" (Delicacies of the table and the best sorts of dishes) by Abu Ali ibn al-Hassan ibn Razin al-Tujibi.

You have some of his recipes in the Florilegium under the Spanish spelling "Tugibi", in which "fat" is translated as *lard*, something no Muslim would ever touch.

My translation is still in rough form. Once i get the whole book translated, i'll be smoothing out all the translations.

This recipe has no title. It's the only one in the 10th Chapter: Concerning Colocasia (taro root)

Wash sweet and tender colocasia to remove the dust. Remove the peel and cut into thin pieces. Boil for a short time with water and salt on the fire. Then wipe them dry and fry in oil or fat until they are golden-brown. Then sprinkle them with a little lime vinegar in a dish.

Chapter 10, Section 7, on the making of vinegars

1. Lime Vinegar
Wash ripe green limes of good quality, cut them in two and express the juice. Strain through a fine cloth and put them in crystal containers. Add the usual quantity of salt and place them in a location in which they are given sun. Then strain once or twice and cover them with oil.

Urtatim al-qurtubiyya

Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:41:58 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] New 544 CE Chinese Recipes

<<< "Taro seed"- what was the original term? Do you mean Colocasia esculenta? 
Because I grow Colocasia esculenta, and it has no seeds. The parts you eat are the root (actually a corm) and the leaves. It's an elephant ear plant.

Madhavi
Trimaris >>>

Taro does have seeds which can be collected when the plant flowers.  There's 
a hybridization project using seed to improve taro cultivars.  You can find 
the manual here, 
http://www.adap.hawaii.edu/adap/Publications/Ireta_pubs/taro_breeding.pdf . 
While they're probably edible, I've never heard of them being used that way.

Indofevillea is a distinct genus of cucurbit.  You can find the botanical 
description for I. khasiana here, 
http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/PDF/PDF19/Indofevillea.pdf .  From what I 
can find, most of the members of the genus are classed as rare or 
endangered.  A new species I. jiroi is known from one plant found in 
Myanmar.

Bear

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 17:51:37 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Taro appears to originate in SE Asia and spread into India about 5000 BCE. 
It spread from Asia to Polynesia and New Guinea and Africa in pre historic 
times.  It is recorded as being cultivate in Egypt by Herodotus. and shows 
up in later writings including Apicius.  DNA evidence suggests that the New 
World taro is related to the Polynesian.  There's not a lot of information 
about the cultivation and use of taro in the Eastern Mediterranean.

For a brief but informative article on taro try, Vaneker, Karin. "From Poi 
to Fufu:  the Fermentation of Taro," Cured, Smoked and Fermented: 
Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking, 2010, pp. 352-364; 
Oxford Symposium, 2011. 
https://books.google.com/books?id=OTxvBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT353&lpg=PT353&dq=pliny+taro&source=bl&ots=-CGDgUZY2T&sig=tBiV-s5_nokD3vPeSwIwmw-U6zQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7r9X73ZDSAhVmxVQKHbN_D_kQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=pliny%20taro&f=false

Bear

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:12:39 -0500
From: "Jim and Andi" <jimandandi at cox.net>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Re: Taro

Just want to make sure that we refer to the botanical name Colocasia
esculenta, since in the tropics the common name "taro" can describe
different plants.

Madhavi

Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:32:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: <lilinah at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] taro, ginger beer etc.

Stefan wrote:
<<< Where and when was taro used in medieval times? >>>

Taro, colocasia esculenta, qulqas in Arabic, appears in nearly every medieval Arabic-language cookbook i have seen, including some not yet translated into English, from ibn Sayyar al-Qarraq's 10th c. collection of 9th and 10th c. recipes from Baghdad to 13th c. cookbooks from al-Andalus, to cookbooks from Mamluk Egypt (1270-1600).

Here's a recipe i recently translated from the circa 1226 Andalusi cookbook "Fadalat al-Khiwan fi Tayibat at-Ta'am wa al alwan" (Delicacies of the table and the best sorts of dishes) by Abu Ali ibn al-Hassan ibn Razin al-Tujibi.

You have some of his recipes in the Florilegium under the Spanish spelling "Tugibi", in which "fat" is translated as *lard*, something no Muslim would ever touch.

My translation is still in rough form. Once i get the whole book translated, i'll be smoothing out all the translations.

This recipe has no title. It's the only one in the 10th Chapter: Concerning Colocasia (taro root)

Wash sweet and tender colocasia to remove the dust. Remove the peel and cut into thin pieces. Boil for a short time with water and salt on the fire. Then wipe them dry and fry in oil or fat until they are golden-brown. Then sprinkle them with a little lime vinegar in a dish.

Chapter 10, Section 7, on the making of vinegars

1. Lime Vinegar
Wash ripe green limes of good quality, cut them in two and express the juice. Strain through a fine cloth and put them in crystal containers. Add the usual quantity of salt and place them in a location in which they are given sun. Then strain once or twice and cover them with oil.

Urtatim al-qurtubiyya

Sosha R. Ruark
December 8 at 5:21 PM
Got to try working with taro root today.  Lovely new recipe. 
http://roxalanasredactions.com/mutawakkiliyya-meat-with-taro/

Anna Krupitsky
 So, which is it: Ceylon cinnamon or Chinese cinnamon in the ingredients?

Sosha R. Ruark 
Anna Krupitsky ceylon. Typing error on my part. Thank you.

Johnna Holloway 
A similar recipe appears in Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table: A Fourteenth-Century ...
By Nawal Nasrallah. See page 110. https://books.google.com/books?id=fIJ1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA110...
[https://books.google.com/books?id=fIJ1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=Mutawakkiliyya%20%20recipes%20meat%20with%20taro&source=bl&ots=lKkyqzqt-x&sig=ACfU3U23sTg2zycb9rbtX0Mb1MJsBOW0aw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvvIzvrqfmAhWIop4KHVlmBpoQ6AEwBXoECAwQAQ&fbclid=IwAR0tGFYB2RR1M31R6qizoY22z8rYOe8P7kOMFoEus4JlpUAmMEuXz8qin34#v=onepage&q=Mutawakkiliyya%20%20recipes%20meat%20with%20taro&f=false]

C Brian Towey 
Interesting. This recipe is hardly seasoned at all by comparison.

Andi Houston 
Johnna Holloway- thank you so much for posting this! There are huge chunks of the text missing from the preview of course, but there are so many cool gourd recipes!

C Brian Towey
I agree the original is confusing. Here's a question. What if you boil everything (like the whole garlic) at first, then later remove the garlic and cut it up?

Sosha R. Ruark 
C Brian Towey hadn't thought of that. The recipe does say to wait until after the first round of boiling ti add the pounded garlic.

C Brian Towey 
At first it lists everything, as though it goes into the pot. Later it changes and spells it out step by step.

I was just wondering if both might be right. Perhaps you get the garlic out of the pot so you can chop it. It would be milder that way.

This might explain why the quantities keep changing. You don't take all the boiled garlic heads out, just some of them.

Or I might be completely wrong.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya 
While your suggestion is interesting C Brian, i haven't seen a Middle Eastern recipe that does that.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya 
I suspect it may have been 5 cloves of garlic, which would be a reasonable amount for 1-1/2 lb of meat and of taro

C Brian Towey 
Agreed, Urtatim. But it also struck me that a list of all the ingredients up front is most unusual. I have read a lot of old recipes from all over. They all take a peck of this and a quart of that and enough of the other thing, step by step. Perhaps it's more common than I thought to list the ingredients and quantities at the top before modern cookbooks, but it just struck me as odd.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya 
It's not at all unusual in Arabic language cookbooks, and is typical in a number of the Ottoman recipes i translated.

C Brian Towey 
Then I withdraw the kook theory. Thank you.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya 
For example, here's the beginning of the recipe for Shekereli Ma'muniyya

Take 400 dirhems white honey, 150 dirhems butter, 350 dirhems washed, pounded, and finely sifted rice flour. First put butter into a pan; when the butter begins to boil, add the rice flour and cook it a little. Then mix the honey with milk from which the foam has been skimmed off, and shredded [cooked] chicken breast...

Sosha R. Ruark 
Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya thinking that as well. 5 heads is just waaaaay to much. A mistranslation perhaps.

Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya 
Yes, that's what i'm thinking. Or originally a scribal error. There are a lot of scribal errors in the extant manuscripts

Andi Houston 
I grew a ton of taro in the garden at my last house and eat it often. I really enjoyed serving it in my last Roman feast, I was surprised at how many of my fellow Trimarians had never eaten it before.

<the end>