Comments on: Breakfast Nibbles: Blueberries, Tomatoes, Coffee, Assorted seeds, African potato, Branding, Mobiles, Food, Myanmar

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:38:54 +0000

I am currently based in New Zealand and have access to Taro in a few varieties , via the Pacific Island communities, one of which is the wild version, which has notably black stems. This is not true of Madumbi, which also has a flower very similar to the Arum. I would be very keen to grow the South African variety as it is a very different flavour to the common Pacific Taro which as previously noted is very bland. Here is a link to a picture of the flower flickr.com/photos/tags/amadumbe/

By: Luigi

Luigi — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:28:17 +0000

It looks to me like a wild-type Colocasia esculenta.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:24:31 +0000

The word is Zulu, but also is also anglicized as Madumbe as in Zulu the “A” is almost silent. The plant is a Taro species grown in Natal and Eastern Cape in South Africa and looks more like the common Arum than the tropical Taro, the corm looks like the Arum corm. Just boiled it is delicious, unlike the Taro which is rather bland.

By: Luigi

Luigi — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:50:59 +0000

Thanks, Frank. That’s what my googling suggested, but you can never tell. Is the language Zulu?

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:23:09 +0000

Amadumbe is an African word for taro, it could however be a selected strain, but I’m not really sure