FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
TACCA PINNATIFIDA, PIA, SALEP, TACCA
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 of Asia and African tropics and islands of Pacific. The tubers of the tacca furnish a mealy nutriement to the inhabitants of the Society Islands and the Moluccas, where the plant is found both wild and in a state of cultivation. In the latter case, the tuberous root loses some of its original acridity and bitterness. The roots are rasped and macerated for four or five days in water and a fecula is separated in the same manner that sago is and, like it, is employed as an article of food by the inhabitants of the Malayan Islands and the Moluccas. In Otaheite, they make cakes of the meal of the tubers. The tubers form an article of diet in china and Cochin China and in Travancore, where they are much eaten, the natives mix agreeable acids with them to subdue their natural pungency. From the tubers, the main supply of the Fiji arrowroot is prepared, and an arrowroot is also made from this plant in the East Inidan province of Arracan.
