Introduction
One of the most astounding facts that I’ve ever learned is that taro is not just a crop of the Asia-Pacific region, but has about two thousand years of history as a food crop in the Mediterranean.
It seems almost anachronistic to me, as if someone had told me the Ancient Egyptians liked to go surfing. In one sense, we could even say that taro is more traditionally Italian than tomatoes! This article will take a look at this topic, and spoiler: perhaps this ancient taro is not just ancient history.
Ancient History of Mediterranean Taro
Taro is one of the most ancient domesticated crops. It’s very difficult to pin down exactly as the lines between cultivated and wild forms are very blurred, but we can broadly say that taro was domesticated separately, multiple times, in various places of the Indo-Pacific region, starting approximately 10,000 years ago but possibly much longer. Today taro is cultivated worldwide and is the fifth most cultivated root crop (after potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes, and true yams).
Regarding Mediterranean taro, it’s easiest to directly quote Grimaldi et al 2018 [1], who extensively researched the historical literature to summarize the evidence for ancient Mediterranean taro usage:
Early literature from the eastern Mediterranean suggests that taro reached the [Mediterranean] region during the late pre-Christian era, and was first associated with a name (arum) that was likely borrowed from the name for related wild plants already present in the region. Records from this era are sparse and do not suggest that the crop was common. The Hebrew evidence indicates that taro was present in Palestine from at least the 3rd century AD, with a new name (karkas) of unknown origin. There may have been a further linguistic shift from karkas to qolqas (Arabic for taro) as taro became more widespread in late Antiquity, while the sacred lotus became less common. The lotus eventually disappeared, possibly due to cultural changes in food preferences, and changes in land use and water control. After the 3rd century AD, taro appears to be more widespread and identified by multiple names in different languages in the polyglot environment of the eastern Mediterranean. Widespread adoption of the Arabic name qolqas, from the Levant to Spain, indicates that the crop spread further with the expansion of Islamic agricultural systems.
The oldest archaeological finding of taro in the Mediterranean consists of fragments of taro corm found in Egypt at the ancient port of Quseir al-Qadim, dated to approximately 1000 AD (~1000 years ago).
Written records stretch back somewhat accurately two thousand years ago, and possibly to 500 BC. Theophrastus wrote of ‘edible aron’ in 4th-3rd c. BC.
Galen described two types of aron – a variety mostly used for medicine in Greece, and another cultivated in Libya as a nutritious food that was exported to Italy:
In cooking, one should pour off its first water and add more hot water, as was described in the case of cabbage and lentils. But in Cyrene [Libya] the plant is the reverse of what it is in our country. For in those parts the arum has very little pharmacological activity and very little bitterness, so that it is more useful than turnips. Because of this they also export the root to Italy, on the grounds that it can keep for a very long time without rotting or sprouting.
Taro is still found growing today in the Wadi Derna, a major river valley in Libya, which is located near the ancient Greek city of Cyrene.
By the 8th to late 12th centuries, taro was widespread in the Mediterranean as a food, medicinal and ornamental plant. There are dozens more references to ancient Mediterranean taro in the paper Literary evidence for taro in the ancient Mediterranean: A chronology of names and uses in a multilingual world if you’re interested to read more.
Mediterranean Taro Today
Taro is still grown to this day in the Mediterranean, mostly in the East (southern Turkey, Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt). It is extensively cultivated in Egypt where it is a common root crop known by the Arabic name qolqas (القلقاس) and in Cyprus, where it is known by the Greek name kolokasi (κολοκάσι). It was formerly grown as a crop in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but has mostly fallen out of favor, although it still exists as a naturalized species.
Field research from Ilaria et al has determined that there was likely just a single variety grown throughout the Mediterranean known as baladay or masry.
This fascinating glimpse into the Western history of taro is not the end of the story, however. What if I told you that it’s very likely that we have the very same taro variety that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all ate, growing in New Zealand?
Cypriot Taro in New Zealand
Dr Peter Matthews is a leading ethnobotanist with over 40 years study of how humans and taro interrelate. He was born in New Zealand but has been living and working in Japan for many decades now. He relayed the following story to me.
While Peter was in Cyprus in the late 1990s, enjoying a dinner of roasted vegetables (including taro of course) at a famous Cypriot cuisine restaurant, the husband owner delighted in telling stories of his far-flung family in New Zealand, mentioning that a sister or brother had decades ago brought their Cypriot taro to New Zealand, settling in Whanganui and now running a locally famous fish and chip shop.
Peter eventually followed up on this lead upon one of his next trips back to New Zealand, visiting this fish and chip shop and speaking with the owner. The owner of the fish and chip shop directed Peter to visit Pūtiki marae, which had been presented with the Cypriot taro some years earlier. The caretaker of the marae garden led Peter to a small patch of taro with pointed leaves and pale yellow/greenish stems, a relatively distinct feature of the Mediterranean taro. Peter was kindly given some plant material to propagate.
I eventually phoned up who I am pretty sure was the former owner of the fish and chip shop, and he said he was not growing this variety anymore. So it seemed I needed to go and look in person.
In 2023 I went to Whanganui, and made a visit to Pūtiki marae. I asked about the taro and was given permission to look for taro. Unfortunately it did not seem like any food was being grown there anymore, let alone taro. I also looked upstream of the marae on the river banks for a few hundred metres (in hindsight I should’ve looked downstream…), and didn’t find any wild taro there either. I did a limited amount of further looking on this trip, but didn’t find any other taro.
Fortunately, Dr Peter Matthews was growing a small patch of this variety at his family home in Auckland and kindly gave me a few corms, which I brought back with me to the South island where it is now growing in pots.
The chain of custody of this taro is not quite rock solid, there exists some doubt that the taro found growing at the Pūtiki marae all those yearsago is indeed the Cyprus taro – we’re trusting the Marae gardener’s word. Thankfully there are some additional tests that can be performed. Mediterranean taro has been determined to be triploid, something that is uncommon for taro, so determining if the variety we have is triploid, is strong evidence it’s correct.
Te Māra Reo garden in Ngāruawāhia is also growing the same Cypriot taro variety [3] also sourced from Dr Peter Matthews, who wrote this description for them [4]:
The Egyptian taro is [remarkable] in producing a lot of acrid slime when cut corms are exposed to water. In Egypt this is removed by repeated salting and washing of raw cut pieces. In water-poor Cyprus water is strictly avoided, and instead a dry cloth is used to wipe peeled corms clean. The slime remains in the corm and is cooked in situ, and lemon juice is added near the end of cooking to reduce any slime released: the acidity breaks down the slime, which is a complex mix of carbohydrates with nutritional value. The Cypriot method seems best to me, from a nutrition [perspective], but boiling and discarding of the first water is easiest – the third way.
I have yet to try and cook this Cypriot taro and see how well the lemon juice works. The traditional combination of taro and lemon is very fascinating to me.
I’m still working to develop my growing skills of taro, and to gather more information about which varieties grow best and are most edible here. Longer term I should have a much better picture of what grows best and what it most useful for the West Coast, as well as some exciting new recipes under development too. Eventually I will propagate plants for other people to grow as well.
Summary
In closing, I simply hope that this knowledge inspires readers to reconsider taro through the same lens that we use when we think of other European heritage food crops.
Perhaps this Cypriot taro is not the most practical variety to grow (‘acrid’ and ‘slime’ are two of my least favourite words haha), and maybe its main value is serving as a bridge between cultures.
References
- Grimaldi, I. M., Muthukumaran, S., Tozzi, G., Nastasi, A., Boivin, N., Matthews, P. J., & van Andel, T. (2018). Literary evidence for taro in the ancient Mediterranean: A chronology of names and uses in a multilingual world. PloS one, 13(6), e0198333. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198333
- https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/89773932
- https://www.temarareo.org/PPN-Talo.html
- https://www.temarareo.org/TMR-Nga_Rongo.html#200229