Mouth watering...If you did not know Good Friday is the official "Blue Food Day" in Trinidad. It is served with stew fish or my favorite salt-fish with tomatoes and onions cooked in oil with other secret ingredients - a mouth watering creole delight. For those of us living in the United States some "Blue Food" with "salt-fish" or with stew fish (Carite or King Fish) is considered a delicacy. "Blue Food"(local reference) or the Dasheen root that is more popularly known outside of Trinidad and Tobago as the Taro plant (root) is not just loved in Trinidad but is used as a staple food in many areas around the world. This root is cooked in many ways but is preferred boiled in Trinidad. The root (corm) is peeled and cut into pieces and boiled. When peeled the root looks white but when boiled the color changes to a light blue. This root is cooked in many ways around the world and is also baked, fried, roasted and steamed. It is used to accompany many dishes but is a favorite when boiled and used as part of a dish or as we also do in Trinidad use it as part of a good sancoch (sancocho for the Spanish) soup. I have also seen YouTube videos that show how to make Taro (dasheen) chips - interesting indeed and something that makes me wonder why haven't we done that in Trinidad? Please note that when peeling this root that it can cause irritation to your hands because it is considered toxic in its raw state and should never be eaten in its raw state (who would be so crazy to try and eat it raw?). Photo:http://www2.nalis.gov.tt
Wikipedia states:
Taro is a tropical plant grown primarily as a root vegetable for its edible corm, and secondarily as a leaf vegetable. It is considered a staple in Oceanic cultures. It is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants.It is known by many names, including dasheen in the Caribbean and arrowroot in East Africa (which could easily be confused with the arrowroot plant Maranta arundinacea); it is one of several plants called cocoyam,and when grown as an ornamental plant it is sometimes loosely called elephant ear together with the closely related Xanthosoma and Caladium.In its raw form the plant is toxic due to the presence of calcium oxalate,although the toxin is destroyed by cooking or can be removed by steeping taro roots in cold water overnight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro