Taro Must Be Cooked or It Burns the Mouth
Taro is a starchy tropical root crop. Raw, it contains needle-sharp crystals.
Taro is a tropical plant grown for its starchy edible corm, a staple across the Pacific, Asia and Africa. It cannot be eaten raw: the plant is full of calcium oxalate in the form of microscopic needle-shaped crystals called raphides, which embed in the mouth and throat and cause intense irritation. Prolonged cooking breaks them down, which is why every taro tradition involves boiling, baking or fermenting. Hawaiian *poi* is made from pounded cooked taro, and the word came into English from Polynesian languages.
- A root crop. *Taro corms.*
- Poi — pounded taro. *Poi.*
- Raphides — the crystals. *Raphides.*
- Colocasia — the genus. *Colocasia.*
- Polynesian — *taro*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | taro | Taro. |
| Plural | taros | Taros. |
| Genus | Colocasia | Colocasia. |
| Related | poi | Poi. |
| Maori | taro | Taro. |
- Taro is a Pacific staple.Food.
- Raw taro irritates the mouth.Safety.
- Poi is pounded taro.Dish.
Staple crops that need processing
- Taro — cooking breaks down irritant oxalate crystals
- Cassava — must be soaked or fermented to remove cyanide compounds
- Kidney beans — contain a toxin destroyed only by boiling
- Acorns — need leaching to remove bitter tannins
- Each tradition encodes the necessary step in its recipes
From Polynesian languages, such as Tahitian and Maori *taro*, recorded in English from the 1700s.
Why can taro not be eaten raw?
It contains needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals that embed in the mouth and throat. Cooking breaks them down.
What is poi?
A Hawaiian staple made from cooked taro corm pounded to a paste, often left to ferment slightly.