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Post by jbl4430 on Dec 31, 2011 22:39:49 GMT -5
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Post by Hristo on Jan 1, 2012 11:14:33 GMT -5
No doubt it's Dioscorea, but is it D. opposita (D. batatas)? Judging of the characters these pics are from Japan.
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Post by jbl4430 on Jan 1, 2012 12:30:05 GMT -5
Is that true yams, Dioscorea? or white sweet potato, Ipomoea ? or other? can you get botanical name? looks interesting if it is Dioscorea. My country (Korea) plant 3 different yam. This is one of 3. My other photo is long root yam is common. and one kind is wild mountain yam. The last one is this photo. This one is came from where we don't know. One thing is easy to grow. Especially not long root is easy to dig.   |
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Post by atash on Jan 1, 2012 14:54:14 GMT -5
I agree they are Dioscoreas. The last one is D. batatas; its a common crop and I recognize the elongated tuber.
Translations are not consistent, and unrelated crops have similar names at least in Chinese, probably Korean and Japanese as well. It's also not unusual for very different ingredients to show up with the same name, if the end product is superficially similar. There are a lot of "tofus/daufus" in Asia not made out of soybeans, just because they make a white curd-like substance.
My first thought of "Yam" is Amorphophallus konjac, which is fairly commonly eaten in Korea (as "diet noodles"--hard for humans to digest; it is also the key ingredient in Asian "jelly candies" and "puddings"). None of these is Konyaku, which is easy to spot. Single huge deeply-lobed leaf.
"Mountain Yam" is Dioscorea batatas. It can grow in much colder climates than Amorphophallus, hence the common name, despite not being particularly closely-related to each other botanically speaking.
Purple sweet potatoes are "Ube" in several languages. Okinawa is known for them, but the Koreans and Chinese have some purple-fleshed strains too. Most are not saturated purple, but just speckled.
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Post by atash on Jan 1, 2012 14:55:42 GMT -5
It would be interesting to find any palatable Dioscoreas other than D. batatas, which is useful in its own right, but the long tubers are a lot of work to dig.
Another interesting project would be to get both genders in cultivation, to make it possible to grow them from seed.
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Post by Hristo on Jan 1, 2012 15:09:27 GMT -5
My biggest yam (opposita) was 88 cm. long, it took me at least an hour to dig it without breaking it (and they are so brittle). This was in the rainy 2005. Nowadays I do not bother to dig them whole, it's too much of work. Some grow them in tubes, but I have not tried this. I wish to find yam species/varieties that is as hardy and palatable as mine, but easier to harvest. And yes the lack of true seed production doesn't help us. P.S. Oops indeed it's Korean not Japanese. But what 공조 means? Google translates it as Air Conditioning  |
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Post by orflo on Jan 1, 2012 15:27:31 GMT -5
Hristo,
you had the same digging problem I had...Pfff they're too brittle. There's a small botanical garden in the city of Gent, quite nearby, and they have two other dioscoreas growing over there that could be worthwile, dioscorea tokoro and dioscorea nipponica. I never saw the roots of those two, they resemble d. batatas a lot and have the same vitality, growing a few metres high. And they do have some other (male?) flowers, but I couln't locate any seeds yet. Now I need to find a new way to upload pictures here...
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Post by jbl4430 on Jan 1, 2012 16:11:48 GMT -5
My biggest yam (opposita) was 88 cm. long, it took me at least an hour to dig it without breaking it (and they are so brittle). This was in the rainy 2005. Nowadays I do not bother to dig them whole, it's too much of work. Some grow them in tubes, but I have not tried this. I wish to find yam species/varieties that is as hardy and palatable as mine, but easier to harvest. And yes the lack of true seed production doesn't help us. P.S. Oops indeed it's Korean not Japanese. But what 공조 means? Google translates it as Air Conditioning 공조----GongJo:the name of photo supplier(Cafe friend) He granted to use photos. I will post more later about apios crosne sunchoke yacon too |
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Post by khoomeizhi on Jan 1, 2012 21:12:59 GMT -5
^when fully cooked, those tubers are pretty potato-like; not too weird to get used to. we have the longer ones (with the necks - on the yellow basket in the picture) naturalizing all over the place around here. i used to cultivate them, but decided it was more energy-efficient to go dig the ones that are 'weeds'
but yes, long and brittle...quite a pain to dig in any kind of natural rocky soil..
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Post by atash on Jan 2, 2012 2:51:35 GMT -5
Wood-N-Stake, D. batatas is quite palatable. They were once tried as a substitute for potatoes after potatoes were ravaged by blight--but the amount of effort for digging the tubers tipped the scale back to potatoes. That said, Asians somehow manage to harvest them.
Not sure how they compare to potatoes nutritionally, but I have a bad feeling they are closer to being "empty calories". Potatoes have a few grams of protein, a little vitamin C, and some colored-flesh types a bit of provitamin A.
I have heard that the wild form of D. bulbifera is edible IF cooked, but I do not know if this is true. That's the one that goes feral easily in tropical climates. The domesticated form can not go feral as animals quickly devour any tubers that humans don't collect. But I have never heard of it ever having been introduced to cultivation outside of Asia and to an extent, Africa. It is also not very hardy. Among the few people who grow it are Jains, as it produces a potato-like aerial tuber that does not involve ANY digging, therefore no destruction of soil fauna (whereas Jains practice Ahimsa).
I did not get any bulbils from my D. batatas this year. Horrible summer. I wanted to take some to my farm to start them there.
Hey, Wood-N-Stakes, you could also grow Taro. That is quite tasty. People probably already grow it in your state--more as an ornamental than a crop. They often grow them where they catch air-conditioning condensation (not a joke). However, those are the big, bland ones. There are other varieties, smaller but sweeter. Some are quite tasty. Makes better "french fries" than potatoes do.
A few folks grow Taro here; one whole yard on Beacon Hill is full of the stuff in the summer, and I've seen it elsewhere too--but I think our climate is marginal for it. It likes heat and humidity.
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Post by atash on Jan 2, 2012 22:51:38 GMT -5
Wild Taro contains calcium oxalate. It is not particularly deadly in amounts you are likely to ingest--it irritates the GI-tract.
Domesticated Taros tend to have little to essentially none. You could eat their leaves and leaf stalks, probably even raw. They are very safe to eat, especially after cooking. The leaf stalk is a vegetable that finds its way into the Vietnamese version of hot-and-sour soup. I've eaten it many times.
They're not like, say, Bitter Cassava (two raw tubers of which will kill an adult). Cyanide. However, even those are perfectly safe as long as you don't graze on raw leaves or the skin of raw tubers. Just a few minutes of cooking the leaves evaporate off the cyanoglycocides. Peeling and cooking the tubers renders those harmless. I've eaten many times. (My daughter popped some raw into her mouth one day--causing a major over-reaction--ending with ipecac syrup).
I have one of its wild relations in my back yard. Manihot grahamii, a common weed in northern Argentina. I've wondered if the leaves would make a high-protein green. Alas, stupidly lacking one of the essential amino acids (its cousin Chaya is more-or-less complete--one of the most productive green vegetables you could grow).
Do you have "Bull Nettles" in your part of the world? Same genus. The tuber is edible (cooked), and I would guess so are the greens after cooking. Same toxin as Cassava so don't eat raw (and brushing against the leaves will give most people a nasty rash).
I do suggest warning children about Manihots, and keeping toddlers away from them. Also critters who might chew the leaves.
Wild Dioscoreas also toxic. They contain a number of interesting chemicals. Large genus, mostly tropical, but some are cold-hardy and a few are very much so.
Upland rice, or grain sorghum. Actually, some sweet sorghums have palatable grain too; then you get syrup AND cereal.
You make batter breads out of them. Make a batter, let it ferment a day or two, and that takes care of the phytic acid that would otherwise bind up nutrients, which is what I think is the problem with a corn-based diet.
Corn does not absolutely have to be nixtamalized; fermenting the batter would work with corn as well. Yeast will break it down too, but not leaven it.
Take the batter, and make pancake-like breads out of them, similar to Ethiopian Injera or south Indian Dosas. Wrap them around whatever you happen to have in the garden mixed with lots of garlic, onions, ginger, red peppers, and so on, and there is a fairly wholesome, inexpensive supper.
Corn is short of not only lysine--which all cereals are somewhat sparse on--but also tryptophan (sp) I think. Sorghum has different amino acid balance but similar levels overall.
I'm going to be experimenting with non-glutinous batter-breads when I have some time. I think it's a good way to make something quick and satisfying to eat, and use a variety of fillings so as to be flexible with what is in the garden.
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