Tropical Roots

(Unpublished)

“Wha’s dis?” said the gum-chewing checkout girl on the till at the supermarket, as she gingerly picked up one of the strange root vegetables that I had placed on the counter with an assortment of other potential purchases.

“Em, I think it’s called an Eddoe,” I said, as I watched her hold it between her thumb and forefinger. She sniffed it tentatively and placed it back on the counter, wiping her hands on her uniform.

“Howdya spell da?” she asked, and sighed as she scratched her head with a pen extracted with some difficulty from behind her ear.

“E-D-D...”

“Howld on a mina’,” she interrupted and pressed some keys on the till before looking at me open mouthed with a semi-vacant expression.

“O-E,” I finished and she hit a few more keys.

She sighed again and stared at the screen for a moment.

“Are ya sure? Cos snaw on de compu-er.”

She tapped the screen with the pen, her mouth hanging open again.

“Pretty sure that’s what was on the sign,” I replied looking behind me, conscious of the growing queue of restless people that was forming on this, the only till open of the half dozen lined up at the exit of the store.

“Dya ee e?”

“Sorry?”

“Like cook e?”

“Oh. Sorry, yes you eat it.”

“Ri’” she said and poked it around the counter with her pen. Then she focused on an imaginary point a foot above my head before pressing some more buttons on her keyboard.

“Well der swee’ podayhoes now. Da’ll be five twen’y five for de loh. Are ya klekdin de stamps?”

‘Aah, No. Thanks,’ I replied shaking my head as I paid her.

“I hope de tays beher than de look,” she said, as she gave me back my change.

I was still shaking my head as I left the store.

She had a point mind you, as they are certainly not the most attractive looking of vegetables. They resemble something a cat had not so much dragged in as covered up in a litter tray.

Eddoes, or Taros, belong to a group of plants called Calocasia. They are native to southeastern Asia and the second part of its Latin name, esculenta, translates as ‘edible’. I first came across them in a previous existence when I sold the tubers as exotic perennials called Elephant’s Ears - not to be confused with Bergenia, which are also known by the same common name - that would grow up to a metre high with broad luxuriant leaves. Although they need winter protection, their jungle effect foliage was a wonderful contrast to grasses and bamboos that were becoming popular at the time, and still are. The flower bulb company who marketed these plants went bust a few years ago and I had forgotten about them until I spotted the exotic roots in a supermarket recently. Although labelled as Eddoes I knew them immediately as the Calocasia I had sold and grown in the past.

I had always recommended growing them in pots so that the could be overwintered easily by lifting the pots in to a shed and letting the leaves turn yellow before removing them to prevent the bulb rotting. I presumed they could be grown from the tubers I had found in the supermarket and sure enough, after a few weeks in pots on the windowsill they began to send out some spindly shoots that I knew will eventually turn into soft heart shaped leaves.

I cooked a few too, peeling them first, cutting them into strips and roasting them in the oven with a little olive oil before tossing them in a little sea salt and black pepper. They tasted vaguely earthy like mild potatoes with a slight sweet-nutty taste and a firm crunchy texture. Although quite tasty they were no match for a few roasted Maris Pipers so I’m not sure that they will be featuring high up in my diet over the coming years. (Not unless I discover they are a cure for hangovers at least.)

The reason they are popular as a food crop in other countries is because of their need for damp soil conditions and high humidity, something that potatoes would not generally tolerate. In tropical countries our staple the spud would collapse and die before you could say, “Have you any spray for potato bli… oh, never mind.” The Eddoe however will thrive and prosper in these conditions so it’s understandable why it and its close relatives are grown instead.

Indeed the tubers I bought in that supermarket had arrived here from Brazil, a country where I’m sure they sow potatoes but where a crop like this, that needs little care or attention can be easily grown by all.

So I think I’ll stick with it for its ornamental value. With its toes sitting in the pond it will make a welcome addition to the jungle of my back garden. Not to mention the fact that it takes a lot of the nutrients out of a pond that would normally cause algae and green water. (I just need to remember to bring it in to my shed for the winter.) Not bad value for fifty cent “swee’ padayhoes” as they’re know in certain retail circles.

Welcome to the jungle!

Walking in the Woods

(Published in 2009)

We went for a wonderful walk in the woods last week. (There’s alliteration that would make my old English teacher proud!) It was a nice crisp, clear afternoon and I had just collected Ryan from school. So when we got home he quickly changed out of his uniform, my better half wrapped up our one year old daughter, Katy, in something warm and way too pink and after throwing the buggy in the boot we set off on the short drive to our local forest park, a couple of miles from our house in suburbia.

The path weaves through some trees before passing by a grassed picnic area near a small lake and on through a larger, densely wooded area before returning back to the start by a slightly different route. To do the whole circuit is a bit of a walk so we tend only do two-thirds of it, as small legs are not able for much more than that. Neither are Ryan and Katy’s for that matter.

As we walked, pushing Katy’s buggy, Ryan ran ahead a little to scout the way before returning to us with something exciting to impart such as a collection of feathers that marked the demise of a pigeon or a fallen branch that ‘looks a bit like a monster’. It really was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, even Katy got in on the act. She wobbled along the path in her new shoes looking like a mini pink Michelin man in her padded jacket, pointing and grunting at anything that moved including a couple of startled joggers she encountered.

The thing is, we didn’t actually see too many people. There were a few cars in the car park but apart from the joggers the only other person we saw was a man walking his dog. It seemed strange to me that the place was so quiet. Sure it was a weekday and yes it was a little cool but not overly so, so why were there not more people about?

It’s a wonderful place to learn about nature and how plants, and animals of course, function in their natural environment. It’s an ideal place to see what happens in autumn when the leaves start to fall from the trees and the various fungi peep through the detritus on the forest floor or perch precariously from a rotting log. At the risk of sounding like David Attenborough, the life cycle of many things surround us in places such as these, and it’s a bit like a living classroom as far a teaching about nature is concerned. Just without the uniforms and Ben 10 lunch boxes.

I must say we are as guilty as everyone else with regard to bringing our kids ‘back to nature’. We don’t get out to these places as often as we should and it’s only when we do get here that I realise what our kids are missing out on.

I grew up in the countryside and learned about nature from what I saw around me in the fields, ditches and woods. Myself, my sisters and our friends would traipse through the local countryside in all seasons and weather, for no reason other than it was the only thing to do. Especially if you wanted to avoid doing things like homework, housework or any other chores. I guess we absorbed nature while we were out and about. It soaked into our bodies as we climbed oak trees, waded through streams and on one memorable occasion found a decomposing fox in a field and poked it with sticks until we got bored, which was a good while later.

Now I live in the town. My children will grow up as ‘Townies’, that pale-faced race we shunned when we were kids (Is that a racist comment?), and I fear that in this bubble-wrapping, child-cosseting, health and safety-fied world we now live in that they won’t experience nature. Learning about it and from it at the same time. I worry that they’ll never get to poke that dead fox with a stick. Does any of that make sense?

This all relates back to gardening of course, in case you thought I had once again gone off on a tangent. You need to know about nature and how it works before you can understand why a shrub flowers at a certain time, why plants berry, why some trees loose their leaves or why moss grows in your lawn. This is because a lot of gardening is not knowledge as such but absorbed common sense from a knowing how nature works.

I think I have a good bit of catching up to do with Ryan but I still have time. Katy should be easier as she’s so young and she might absorb things a little easier. That is providing we can loose the pink, puffy, nature-deflecting look she currently has.

Perhaps I can still knock that ‘Townieness’ out of them to some degree!

So today we’re off to the woods again and hopefully we’ll see something new. Maybe some ripened hazelnuts, a rabbit burrow or something else new and exciting to a now five year old. Although I’m not sure if he’s up to a dead fox yet, and I doubt if his teacher would like it on the nature table either!