Taro: The Oldest Food Crop on Earth with a 10,000 Year Culinary History
Dish of Eddoe corms
Colocasia esculenta, also known as Taro or Dasheen as well as many other vernacular names, is an important food crop, widely cultivated in a zone spanning across Asia, South East Asia and Melanesia. Its starchy root is included in the diet of about half a billion people, making it an important source of nutrition (Lebot, 2009). It is also, most probably, the oldest crop on earth with a history going back more than 10,000 years. Evidence of taro use during the early and mid-Holocene period has been found in the form of taro starch traces on tools used to process starchy food at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands of New Guinea (Fullager, et al, 2006).
Over the millennia, it has acquired considerable socio-cultural significance. It is a prestige crop for gifting and feasting; parts of the plant are used medicinally and it features in the folklore of Oceania and South East Asia (Onwueme, 1999).
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