FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
UDO
a Japanese vegetable that belongs to the Ginseng family with
tender stalks resembling asparagus but having a light fennel flavor.
Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.
The Udo is aralia cordata, an attractive member of the Ivy or Aralia Family. Extensively cultivated in its native Japan.
Udo is a very pretty plant, attaining heights form four to eight feet, shrubby in habit, with masses of intricately cut vivid-green foliage. It is cultivated as an ornamental to a small degree in temperate parts of this country.
Introduced into the United States by Barbour Lathrop and David Fairchild in 1903, Udo was given considerable enthusiastic publicity by the latter great horticulturist in his variosu publications. Despite his affection for it, today the plant is grown only by select gourmet gardeners.
The shoots of Udo have a fairly positive flavor of turpentine, which may in part explaiin its lack of acceptance by the Occidental cook here. But this can be dispelled by boiliing the stalks in salted water for ten minutes or so, then refrigerating in ice water for a couple of hours.
Another kind of aralia, the Chinese Angelica Tree (Aralia chinensis), which grows up to forty feet tall, with a somewhat prickly trunk and large multiparted attractive leaves, is cultivated to some extent in the Orient, not only as a desirable ornamental, but for the burgeoning juvenile leaves, which are eaten, after boiling in several changes of water, as a vegetable, usually with rice or in soups.
UNG-CHOI
Excerpts from Hawkes, Alex D. 1968. A World of Vegetable Cookery. Simon and Schuster, New York.
Ung-choi is a member of the same genus as sweet potato, known botanically as Ipomoea reptans (Morning Glory Family). In Hawaii this plant, from India and China, is known as Swamp Cabbage, a name which in the mainland United States is generally applied to the aroid Spathyema foetida (also known as Skunk Cabbage).
The Chinese are very fond of Ung-choi, cutting the apical sprouts of the awuatic fleshy vine into pieces about three inches in length, then rapidly cooking them in a bit of peanut or soy oil, to be served without delay, lightly seasoned with salt or soy sauce.
