THE ROUROU STORY
IT is called cara or inhame in Portuguese, malanga in Spanish Cara, tales in Java, Taro in Tahiti, talo in Samoa or kalo in Hawaii while here at home it is called dalo. While growing up as a child, the mention of dalo meant beautiful delicious lovo or rourou made of dalo leaves -a dish which many children feared at dinner tables because of the itchy sensation properly cooked that imrourou triggered.
Known scientifically as Colocasia esculenta I was amused to learn that the tropical root crop is also consumed in Asia and other parts of the world, especially Europe.
Grown for its edible corms and leaves, here in the Pacific taro is a root crop that forms part of the staple diet of Fijians. It is also used widely in African, Oceanic and South Asian cultures where it is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants.
Taro, the plant from which rourou leaves are sourced is found widely in tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea, and northern Australia and is highly polymorphic, making taxonomy and distinction between wild and cultivated types difficult.
It is believed that they were domesticated independently, with authors giving possible locations as New Guinea, Mainland Southeast Asia, and north-eastern India, based largely on the assumed native range of the wild plants.
However, more recent studies have pointed out that wild taro may have a much larger native distribution than previously believed, and wild breeding types may also likely be indigenous to other parts of Island Southeast Asia.
Archaeological traces of taro exploitation have been recovered from numerous sites, though whether these were cultivated or wild types cannot be ascertained.
Taro was carried into the Pacific Islands by Austronesian peoples from around 1300 BC, where they became a staple crop of Polynesians, along with other types of "taro", like Alocasia macrorrhizos, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, and Cyrtosperma merkusii.
Taro is also identified as one of the staples of Micronesia, from archaeological evidence dating back to the pre-colonial Latte Period (c. 900 - 1521 AD), indicating that it was also carried by Micronesians when they colonised the islands.
Taro pollen and starch residue have also been identified in Lapita sites.
In the highlands of Namosi, rourou leaves are a staple diet for the villagers, who seldom enjoy the range of greens provided in supermarkets.
Therefore its women and men have found diverse ways of cooking dalo leaves to make them enjoyable.
A cooking method that people in the highlands are well known for is the Sovu, which is rourou cooked in the green bamboo stem, a suitable method of cooking used by those hunting in the deep forest where there are no pots.