Subject: Re: Grocery Store Aroids
On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Lester Kallus wrote:
> Perhaps its time for one of our web pages to have a table with common
> grocery store name in one column and scientific name in the next column.
>>After acquiring something called 'malanga' aka X.saggitifolia (but after
it grew, the coloring and general appearance seem to be somwhere
X.violaceum and X.saggitifolia), I did some web searches and here's the
list of relevant entries:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/~ngrlsb/dictionary/tico/
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1990/v1-424.html#Edible Aroids
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/Indices/index_ab
http://www.uwcm.ac.uk/uwcm/dm/BoDD/BotDermFolder/BotDermA/ARAC.html
http://www.fao.org/waicent/FAOINFO/Economic/faodef/fdef02e.htm
http://www.mgardens.org/OLG-200T-LIST.html<<
Dear Krzysztof,
What happened to you is common, as the words "malanga"(generally Cuban ) and
"yautia" ( generally Puerto Rican or Dominican Republic ) are the generic
names for ALL edible Xanthosoma/Colocasia species in the Spanish Caribbean,
and these words are then qualified by the "variety" of tuber you are buying,
such as "malanga /yautia blanca" (which WILL turn out to be X. sagittifolia )
or "malanga/yautia lilac" (which will be "red coco" in Jamaican groceries and
may be X. violacium ), or "malanga/yautia amarilla" which, according to
Bown`s book is X. atrovirens, or "malanga cabeza" which will be Colocasia
esculenta esculenta ! This is understandable, if one remembers that
"malanga/yautia" is like saying "potato", but, do you need an IDAHO potato, or
a RED potato, or a BROWN potato, etc., etc.
I had this "conversation" with my friend Don just recently, and he was
confused at first. And remember, there are others out there that I do not
know the Spanish names for as yet, such as Colocasia esculenta antiquorum,
which is called "eddoes" in the English-speaking West Indian groceries but
"arvi" in Indian/Pakistani groceries, and is being sold as "taro root" at Winn
Dixie near my home !
Good luck.
Julius
ju-bo@msn.com
>From the above, you can learn, e.g., that Tahitian Spinach is an aroid ..
====================
Krzysztof Kozminski
kk@netgate.net
http://www.netgate.net/~kk/
|