According to ISHS Acta Horticulturae: The dasheen (Colocasia esculenta L.) is a herbaceous, tuberous perennial with large distinctive leaves and is cultivated extensively in tropical countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, for both the tender leaves and the tubers. The leaf with the stem attached commonly called "dasheen bush" or "callaloo bush" and is usually cooked as spinach.
Here is an interesting clip from a NY Times article that provides some very informative and interesting information. The NY Times article is followed by a YouTube video showing one version on how to make the dish. YouTube has several videos available showing different ways to make the dish with some short-cut methods cutting the time in half. I could not get a video that shows how to make the dish using dasheen leaves and crab but the method used is the same but without some of the traditional ingredients - it will suffice. Now for those of you whom are not Trinidadian (a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago) please don't feel insulted by my boast about Trinidad callaloo OK. The taste will set you free.
Here is an interesting clip from a NY Times article that provides some very informative and interesting information. The NY Times article is followed by a YouTube video showing one version on how to make the dish. YouTube has several videos available showing different ways to make the dish with some short-cut methods cutting the time in half. I could not get a video that shows how to make the dish using dasheen leaves and crab but the method used is the same but without some of the traditional ingredients - it will suffice. Now for those of you whom are not Trinidadian (a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago) please don't feel insulted by my boast about Trinidad callaloo OK. The taste will set you free.
NY Times:
Callaloo, which is of African origin, first used native shusumber berries and has since gone through many evolutions, just as the population of Trinidad itself has mixed Africans with Europeans, Chinese, Syrians and East Indians. In its present form, according to Sylvia Hunt, star of the Monday evening television cooking show ''At Home,'' callaloo is ''such a native dish that you long to taste it if you're abroad.''
In Trinidad, some dishes are believed to have special properties. If you've eaten cascadura, a fresh water fish served stewed, stuffed, or curried with coconut, folklore has it that you will come back to Trinidad to end your days. Callaloo, it is said, is a way for a woman to make a man propose marriage. According to the calypso: My friend Joe, from Port of Spain Met a girl time and again Joe went home with her one day So I hear the people say, There she gave him callaloo, Married Joe before he knew. (Chorus: I don't want no callaloo!) To make callaloo, Mrs. Hunt explained, she selects young dasheen leaves, washes and dries them, peels the veins from the leaves and breaks them into pieces. ''Abroad,'' she noted, ''one has to make do with spinach leaves.''
To the leaves, she adds several crabs, chopped okra, chives, onions, garlic, salt and one green hot pepper which is not chopped up because the idea is not to make the mixture too tangy or let any one spice dominate. The ingredients go into a pot, and boiling water is poured on to cover them. They are simmered from 45 minutes to an hour, until the leaves are tender and the okra seeds have turned pink.
Mrs. Hunt does not use coconut milk in her callaloo - she thinks it is too rich - but Allyson Hennessy, one of the owners of the restaurant Veni Mange, which is patois for ''Come and Eat,'' in Port of Spain, considers it essential. This coconut milk, Mrs. Hennessy explained, is not the liquid that pours out after one has chopped the top off a coconut. Instead, it is the liquid strained off after the meat from a small dried coconut has been blended with a pint and a half of water.
