Scattered across makeshift wooden tables and burlap mats in open-air Caribbean markets, the strange-looking roots seem more fit for planting than plating at the table. We call them 'provisions,' says Erica Burnette-Biscombe, who with partner and husband Tony owns Dominica's renowned La Robe Creole restaurant.
Provisions is a slave-era term still used today for tubers, root vegetables such as boniato, cassava, malanga, taro and yams. They grow snug beneath the ground, assuring that they can survive both droughts and hurricanes. Because they were so reliable, they served as a staple food for sugar plantation workers. Following a now centuries-old tradition, Burnette-Biscombe sets out each morning for the Roseau market to buy provisions for La Robe Creole's menu.
Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico to the north, chef Mariano Ortiz visits markets in Santurce or Rio Piedras for the fresh tropical tubers he also will serve several ways at San Juan's landmark Ajili-Mojili restaurant.
Tropical tubers have a certain sameness of appearance, yet each has distinctive nuances and often a lyrical name as well. Boniatos (batatas, white sweet potatoes) are irregularly shaped, have a smooth beige skin and yellowish-white flesh, and taste like a cross between a sweet potato and an Idaho potato. The buttery-tasting cassava (also called manioc or yuca) has a bright white flesh encased within a long narrow bark-covered body. Malangas (tannia, yautia, cocoyam) are shaggy, brown and shaped like a baseball bat. They have pink nutty-tasting flesh and are often confused with taro. Taro (dasheen, eddoe), on the other hand, is barrel-shaped with a top-knot at one end and rootlets at the other, with a speckled white flesh that tastes a bit like chestnut. Yams have a skin than ranges from blackish brown to tan and taste more like an Idaho potato than any other tropical tuber.
At the market, look for tubers that are rock-hard, with no soft, moldy or shrunken spots or cracks. Pick the best by pricking through the skin with a fingernail: The flesh should be crisp and juicy, like celery. Once you bring them home, keep tubers in a cool, well-ventilated place and use within a couple of days, before they get soft.
Probably the most All-American way to taste-test tropical tubers is to make them into crispy chips. To do this, start with about 2 pounds/1 kilogram of root tubers; this is enough to make appetizer servings for six people. Scrub the tubers well with a soft-bristled brush to remove dirt, and then peel them. Wear gloves when peeling taro and yam since their flesh contains an acrid juice that can irritate skin.
Slice peeled tubers into paper-thin ovals, and douse them immediately in cold water tinged with lemon juice to keep the light-colored flesh from turning dusky-gray.
Fill a large, deep saucepan one-third full of vegetable oil and heat the oil to 3500F/1770C - hot enough so that chips don't absorb too much oil and become greasy, but not so hot that the chips burn. Deep-fry the slices in small batches for about two minutes (gently stir after one minute to ensure both sides are being cooked); remove them from the oil with a long-handled slotted spoon, drain well in a colander, and then pat dry with paper towels.
Sprinkle the chips with salt, seasoned salt or chili powder, or use ground cinnamon or nutmeg for a subtly sweet flavor.
Healthier, yet no less tasty, tropical tuber chips can be oven-fried. Lay cut slices on an oiled baking sheet, making sure that both sides of the chips are coated with oil. Bake at 4000F/2040C for 20 minutes. Turn the chips over with a spatula, and bake 10 minutes more. Cool on a wire rack.
Once you've been tempted by this trendy chip recipe, try more traditional tuber dishes, like those served at La Robe Creole. Inside the cozy dining room, with its wood rafters and ladder-back chairs, wait staff attired in the ornate petticoats and madras head-ties of Dominica's native dress serve up one of the restaurants signature dishes - callaloo. This soupy stew is made from the very young leaves at the heart of the taro or dasheen plant as well as the root tuber.
Callaloo is filled with crab claws, often pig tail or salt meat and, of course, the dasheen, says Burnette-Biscombe, using Dominica's common name for taro. Thanks to rich volcanic soil and abundant rainfall, tubers grow abundantly in Dominica and are served in a number of other ways at La Robe Creole. Boiled and mashed with milk, butter and cheese makes yam or dasheen pie, Burnette-Biscombe says. Boiled slices of tubers are served along with fish broth: fresh fish that has been simmered in a rich onion-butter sauce. She also makes cold boiled yam or dasheen into a Caribbean version of potato salad by mixing it with mayonnaise, onion and celery.
Ajili-Mojili's Ashford Avenue location, in the heart of San Juan's Condado district, and its floor-to-ceiling front windows make it a great place to people-watch - and also to sample authentic Puerto Rican cuisine. The menu is a composite of regional favorites from all over the island, says Rafael Benitez, who with brother Jose has owned the restaurant since 1993.
Tropical tubers take root on the menu from appetizers through main courses. For starters, cigar-shaped yam fritters are paired with the house-namesake Ajili-Mojili sauce - a secret blend of 16 ingredients. Sanchoco is a rich soup filled with assorted root vegetables like yam, as well as yautia and yuca (Puerto Rico's common name for malanga and cassava, respectively), along with plantain, corn, smoked ham and seasonings. Cold entrees include serenata - flaked salt codfish, served with sliced tubers, onions, avocados and tomatoes and sprinkled with an oil and vinegar dressing. Hot main dishes feature empanadas and pasteles, where a spicy meat-based filling is encased by a dough made from plantain, yam, yautia or yuca dough.
Tropical tubers have traveled outside the Caribbean to mainland markets across the nation. Savvy home cooks are discovering these extraordinary roots are as user-friendly as an Idaho potato - and are foods they can really dig into.
Posted online 01/01/99.
