Taro: "Actually, My Formal Name is Yu Nai"

Taro is primarily distributed throughout warm, humid tropical and subtropical regions, where it serves as a remarkably common ingredient across East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Egypt, Greece, West Africa, the Caribbean, and extending to the Pacific Islands.

The Deep Roots of Indigenous Taro Culture

Belonging to the Araceae family within the genus Colocasia, taro has been woven into the fabric of Taiwan's indigenous cultures for countless generations. These origins stretch back into prehistory, with the earliest written documentation appearing in Chen Di's Dongfan Ji (Records of the Eastern Barbarians) from 1603 during the Ming Dynasty.

Taiwan's indigenous peoples have cultivated a remarkable diversity of taro varieties, broadly categorized into two distinct types: mountain taro (also known as dryland taro) grown on hillside slopes, and water taro cultivated in the paddies of flatland areas. Each tribal community has developed its own regional cultivars.

The extraordinary scope of this diversity becomes clear through documented examples. Paiwan artist Sakuliu Pavavaljung's book Mountain Taro: Tribal Classroom 2 records that the Paiwan people alone preserve 15 distinct taro varieties. Meanwhile, the Tao people (officially designated as Yami) of Orchid Island cultivate water taro with even greater diversity, maintaining an impressive 21 different varieties of this crop.

Today, Taiwan's lowland regions primarily cultivate the Binlang Xin Yu variety (named for its betel nut-like characteristics), which yields abundant harvests. Taichung's Dajia district stands as the island's most renowned taro-producing region, with Pingtung's Gaoshu area taking over production duties after the Qingming Festival period.

Taiwanese cuisine presents taro in both savory and sweet ways—it can serve as a staple food or cooking ingredient, be made into desserts, and frequently appears on dining tables as a hot pot ingredient. Whether in savory preparations like taro pork rib soup, taro congee, and taro rice noodle soup, or sweet preparations like taro sago dessert, taro cake, and taro ice cream, each demonstrates Taiwan’s creative and innovative culinary mastery of this ancient ingredient.