FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
COLOCASIA ANTIQUORUM ESCULENTA, ELEPHANT'S EAR, KALO, TARO
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant largely grown in Tahiti, and Ellis says the natives have distinct names for 33 of the varieties. Nordoff says more than 30 varieties of kalo are cultivated in the Hawaiian Islands and adds that all the kinds are acrid except one which is so milk that it may be eaten raw. Simpson says, "Kalo forms the principal food of the lower class of the Sandwich Islanders and is cultivated with great care in small enclosures kept wet." From the root a sort of paste called poi is made. Masters says it is called taro, and the rootstocks furnish a staple diet. It is also grown in the Philippines and is enumerated by Thunberg among the edible plants of Japan. In Jamaica, Sloane says the roots are eaten as potatoes, but th chief use of the vegetable, says Lunan, is as a green, and it is as delicate, wholesome, and agreeable a one as any in the world. In soup it is excellent, for such is the tenderness of the leaves that they, in a manner, dissolve and afford a rich, pleasing and mucilaginous ingredient. it is very generally cultivated in jamaica. Adams found the boiled leaves very palatable in the Philippines but the uncooked leaves were so acrid as to b e poisonous. At Hongkong, the tubers are eaten under the name of cocoas In Europe and America it is grown as an ornamental plant.
