Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Tannia along with all the Tannia containing recipes presented on this site, with 26 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Tannia recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Tannia as a major wild food ingredient.



Tannia (also known as malanga, otoy, otoe, cocoyam (or new cocoyam), tannier, yautía, macabo, ocumo, macal, taioba, dasheen, quequisque, ʻape and (in Papua New Guinea) as Singapore taro (taro kongkong) and calalloo [when referring to the leaves]) are plants in the Xanthosoma genus (most notably X. sagittifolium but also X. atrovirens, X. violaceum and X. maffaffa) are monocotyledonous plants grown for their large, starchy, corms and their edible leaves. The name is derived from the Greek words ξανθός (xanthos), meaning 'yellow', and σῶμα (soma), meaning 'body'. It refers to the stigma or yellow inner tissues.

Domestication of Xanthosoma species is thought to have originated in northern lowland South America, then spread to the Antilles and Mesoamerica. Today, Xanthosoma is still grown in all those regions, but is especially popular in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where it is used in alcapurrias or boiled. It is grown in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Jamaica to make the popular callaloo dish, and in St. Kitts and Nevis/Trinidad to make tannia fritters and Dominica to make cream of tannia soup. It is also grown in West Africa, now a major producer, where it can be used as a replacement for yams in the popular regional dish called fufu (typically called cocoyam fufu).

Traditionally, Xanthosoma has been a subsistence crop with excess sold at local markets, but in the United States, large numbers of Latin American immigrants have created a market for commercial production. In general, production has yet to meet demand in some areas. In Polynesia, Alocasia macrorrhizos (‘ape) was considered a famine food, used only in the event of failure of the much preferred taro (kalo) crop. After having been introduced to Hawaii in the 1920s from South America, Xanthosoma has naturalized and has become more common than A. macrorrhizos, and has been given the same name, ʻape.

The genus, Xanthosoma is a member of the Arecaceae family of flowering monocotyledonous plants. As such, it is related to taro Colocasia esculenta which is quite similar in appearance and culinary usages and which is most commonly used as a substitute (both corms and leaves).

The leaves of most Xanthosoma species are 40–200cm long, sagittate (arrowhead-shaped) or subdivided into three or as many as 18 segments. Unlike the leaves of the related Colocasia genera, those of Xanthosoma are usually not peltate – the upper v-notch extends into the point of attachment of the leaf petiole to the blade.

The typical Xanthosoma plant has a growing cycle of 9 to 11 months, during which time it produces a large stem called a corm, this surrounded by smaller edible cormels about the size of potatoes. These cormels (like the corm) are rich in starch. Their taste has been described as earthy and nutty, and they are a common ingredient in soups and stews. They may also be eaten grilled, fried, or puréed. The young, unfurled leaves of some varieties can be eaten as boiled leafy vegetables or used in soups and stews, such as the Caribbean callaloo.