[HN Gopher] (Enset, a.k.a. "false banana") an underutilised food...
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       (Enset, a.k.a. "false banana") an underutilised food security crop
        
       Author : Kaibeezy
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2022-01-21 12:25 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (iopscience.iop.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (iopscience.iop.org)
        
       | cogman10 wrote:
       | Looks like a banana, tastes like a potato.
       | 
       | https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/enset-kocho-ethiopia
        
         | fouc wrote:
         | > It looks like a banana plant, harvests like a root vegetable,
         | and tastes like flatbread. Though the enset is a technical
         | cousin of the banana, this tree offers a food that is much more
         | potato-like. English-speakers--feeling betrayed by the enset's
         | misleading appearance--decided to call it "the false banana."
        
       | justhw wrote:
       | I bring back about 10 kilos of enset powder (kocho) every time I
       | go to Ethiopia. It's an incredibly healthy food.
        
       | addaon wrote:
       | Basic info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensete
       | 
       | Interesting that the fruit is inedible; it's the roots and stalk
       | that are used.
        
         | aaron695 wrote:
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | Seems like that's a disadvantage, since the plant would
         | otherwise be perennial (if you didn't need to dig it all up to
         | eat it). I guess if it also grows wild it may not take a lot of
         | care.
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | I don't know how this plant works, but this is an 'it
           | depends' situation in the general case. Some edible 'roots'
           | on plants are more like tubers than roots, and in theory you
           | can dig the plant up at dormancy, cherry-pick a couple of the
           | most edible looking bits, and plop it back in the ground.
           | 
           | With some wild-gathered edible bulbs, the act of digging up
           | the central bulb ends up fragmenting offsets (and pushing
           | them a bit away from the former center of mass). For those
           | plants that have co-evolved with humans, like cammassia, it's
           | claimed that over the long run you get more and healthier
           | plants by this sort of selective harvesting.
           | 
           | There are also plants that can grow from root divisions,
           | including a few noteworthy pernicious weeds. Digging up 'the
           | plant' invariably leaves some rather large side roots in the
           | ground, several of which might become independent plants,
           | again radiating out from the original central stalk. I have
           | the vaguest of recollection that burdock has this quality,
           | but don't quote me on that. Comfrey definitely does this but
           | it's not really edible, root or stalk (it has some nasty oil
           | soluble alkaloids that your liver will not appreciate).
        
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       (page generated 2022-01-21 23:02 UTC)