Tubers are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season, and as a means of asexual reproduction.
Stem tubers form underground stems or stolons (horizontal connections between organisms). Common plant species with stem tubers include potato and yam. Some sources also treat modified lateral roots (root tubers) under the definition; these are found in sweet potatos, cassava, and dahlias.
Apio
Arracacia xanthoriza
A few specimens of this South American root crop were spotted in the markets of Les Cayes and Furcy in December. Those at Les Cayes had been brought from the highlands of Les Platons.
Malangá
Taro
Colocasia esculenta
Two varieties of Colocasia esculenta are grown in Haiti. Malangá Deux Palles, a robust plant one meter (3 feet) high with big dark green shiny, peltate leaves with wavy edges and pale green stems, which is raised in the moist soil along the streams in the mountains near Furcy; and Malangá Mozombel, a smaller plant with dull green, peltate leaves and purple stems, which is raised in rice paddies, in the foggy uplands of the Massif de la Hotte and to a lesser extent in moist sites elsewhere. The only area where malangá occupies more than five percent of the crop land is in the Massif de la Hotte above 800 meters (2,400 feet), where it is one of the chief crops planted in clearings made by squatters on the public domain. Malangá Mozombel was brought from Cuba to Haiti about 1920 by cane cutters according to M. Schiller Nicolas of the Department of Agriculture.
Malangá Mozombel is propagated in various fashions, from seed, from tops with a portion of corm attached which are cut off when the corms are harvested, from rhizomes and from small plants that grow up from rhizomes. It is planted in and along drainage and irrigation ditches, on hillocks of mud and organic refuse in rice paddies, and - in areas of frequent fog and abundant rainfall - in level or sloping fields. There is no special planting season. It is cultivated two or three times before it is gathered by pulling six months after planting. Rhizomes left in the ground perpetuate the Mozombel so that replanting may not be necessary for two or three years.
Malangá is little troubled with disease or pests.
Tender Mozombel leaves and stems are cooked for greens; the coarser leaves of Mozombel and the leaves of Deux Palles are fed to the hogs.
Malangá corms and rhizomes are prepared for the table by boiling or by smashing into tam tam. Sometimes the are sliced, dried in the sun, and ground into flour in a mortar. The flour is used to thicken soups and to make sweet unleavened cakes. Grated malangá mixed with spiced and milk is fried in deep fat to make akra. Mozombel often is cooked in soup.
Manioc
Manioc
Manihot app.
As with so many other New World plants, manioc bears a Tupi name in Haiti and an Arawak one, yuca, in the Dominican Republic. In all but the highest and wettest areas, this hardy root crop is grown. Preferably it is planted in a spot with full sun, and very often it is interplanted with other crops such as maize or sweet potatoes which are harvested long before the manioc. Once these other crops have been gathered, the field is seldom cultivated so that old manioc patches tend to be weedy. Segments of manioc stalk 10 to 15 cm (5 inches) long with two or three leaves on each, are planted in a horizontal position at intervals of one meter (3 feet). Planting is not seasonal, though in general it is during a rainy season.
Caterpillars eat the manioc leaves, verrucous gall grows on them, livestock browse on them, too, without harm to themselves though they are not used for fodder. But it is dangerous for stock to eat the roots of the poisonous bitter manioc. Sometimes pigs die in the manioc patch. The rats eat even the roots of bitter manioc.
Ordinarily the manioc is not dug less than six months after planting, and after that it is harvested at the owner's convenience. Sweet manioc is usually gathered after about one year. If it is left in the ground longer it becomes fibrous and unsuited for cooking as a vegetable. As for the bitter manioc, 18 months is considered the optimum age for harvest, but it is sometimes allowed to grow for two years. When teh manioc is to be used at home, it is dug a little at a time, whereas, if it is to be sold, the whole patch is dug at once. On the Cayes Plain the average yield is 15 tons per acre.
Sweet manioc is more expensive than bitter manioc, and it is usually cooked as a vegetable, boiled or roasted, though it may be processed into Cassava.
The heavier-yielding more abundant, and cheaper bitter manioc is used almost entirely for making manioc flour. Sometimes the peeled roots are boiled in syrup. To process the bitter manioc, it is peeled, shredded on a tin grater, placed in a bag of plaited palm fronds and squeezed in a wooden press fashioned like a giant nutcracker with a fixed lower jaw and a movable upper jaw 3 m (9 ft) long. Then it is ground in a mortar and sifted through a round sieve which has a button of plaited bamboo or liana and and a 5 cm (3 in) vertical rim made of a single thin wooden band. Now, the fresh moist flour may be prepared in various ways. It may be sprinkled with a circular steel hoop mold onto a hot cast iron griddle which rests on some stones above an open wood fire, and toasted for a few minutes to make cassava - a sort of manioc hard tack. Or it may be sprinkled on the griddle and stirred as it is toasted to make crumbs called cous cous. Still another dish is made by filling a small pot, about 15 cm (6 inches) in diameter, with manioc flour to a depth of 2.5 cm (1 inch) and toasting it to make a cake with a moist interior and a nicely browned exterior. Often one of these cakes - called bon bourri is laid atop another to better retain the moisture. Peanuts, coconut and sesame are sometimes incorporated in cassava and bon bourri, and coconut juice may be mixed with the flour to make bon bourri.
The juice expressed from the manioc is saved, the starch is allowed to settle out and the water decanted so that the solid matter may be dried. Form it, little sweet unleavened cakes (bonbon), pudding, and clothes starch are made.
There is a considerable internal trade in manioc, cassava, and manioc starch. Some surplus areas are the Plaine de Mapou, Port-Salut, Carcasse, Jérémie, Roseaux, Grande Cayemite, and Petit-Trou-de-Nippes.
Many varieties of manioc, which differ in leaf size and shape, and the color of stem, petioles, and the interior and exterior of the root, are grown.
Contrary to widespread opinion both bitter and sweet manioc give visible seed, a phenomenon which the author observed also in the Dominican Republic and the Belgian Congo, and which Abbé Raynal commented upon over 175 years ago. These seeds serve no better purpose than food for the wild doves, for they do not breed true and they produce and inferior plant.
Manufacture of cassava is widespread in tropical Africa; manioc crumbs are a dish of the Tupi; It has been observed that a thick manioc cake similar to the bon bourri is a staple food in the Belgian Congo and the Sulu Archipelago.
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