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Taro (pronounced /'t?ro?/), also called Dasheen, and one of several plants called Cocoyam [1], is a tropical plant grown primarily as a vegetable food for its edible corm, and secondarily as a leaf vegetable. It is considered a staple in Oceanic cultures. It is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants.[2] In its raw form the plant is toxic due to the presence of calcium oxalate,[3][4] although the toxin is destroyed by cooking[5] or can be removed by steeping taro roots in cold water overnight. Taro is closely related to Xanthosoma and Caladium, plants commonly grown as ornamentals, and like them it is sometimes loosely called elephant ear. Taro was probably first native to the lowland wetlands of Indonesia where it was known as "talas." Estimates are that taro was in cultivation in wet tropical India before 5000 B.C.,[citation needed] presumably coming from Malaysia, and from India further transported westward to ancient Egypt, where it was described by Greek and Roman historians as an important crop. The Indonesian crop and the indigenous name ("talas") followed prehistoric Austronesian seafarers into Oceania where it is currently known as cognate variants of "talas" including "dalo," "talo," "taro," and "kalo." The scientific name for the species that includes Taro is Colocasia esculenta; esculent is an English word taken directly from Latin and means edible. The Xanthosoma genus is closely related, and several common names including callaloo and coco or cocoyam are used to refer to either Taro or domesticated Xanthosoma species which share substantially the same uses. Taro may be distinguished as "taro cocoyam" or "old cocoyam", with the term "new cocoyam" referring to species of Xanthosoma. Taro was used by the early Romans in much the same way the potato would later be used by Europeans. They called this root vegetable colocasia. Apicius mentions several methods for preparing taro. The text of Apicius seems to imply that the usual cooking method was to boil taro in water. Apicius suggests that a sauce be made from pepper, cumin, rue, vinegar, oil and liquamen to be served with chopped pieces of boiled taro.[6] Apicius also mentions recipes in which pieces of taro are cooked along with meat or fowl, similar to the manner in which potatoes are now used in European meat dishes. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of taro gradually ceased in Europe. This was largely due to the decline of trade and commerce, as most of the taro used throughout the Roman Empire had been grown and exported from Egypt.
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