TARO

or Kalo, or Dranu, or “Eddo,” a sub-tropical and tropical plant in several species and many varieties, with big ‘‘elephant ear’’ leaves, cultivated for the sake: of its large, edible, starchy underground corm (or ‘*bulb’’) and tubers, Raw (or undercooked) taros are aerid, ~ —— but properly cooked (in various ways — boiled, =i baked, fried, and in soup) ' they are both pleasing and a wholesome. Their fleshsug- } =:, gests the potato, though a Ss generally drier and more ‘ d: flavory. Their starch content is of particularly? easy a imilation. The q ' young leaves and stalks ee. Li also are serviceable as \. greens — ordinarily % cooked with fat meats to. neutralize their acridity. The flesh of the taro is fy usually white or creamy, but is; \ sometimes yellow, pink, or any one of several other tints. The | ‘‘royal taro’’ is a highly coly ored variety, with red sap and >; reddish skin, formerly rer served for Hawaiian royalty. z Wr Taro is famous in travel y ye lore and literature under the ee name of ‘‘poi,’’ a slightly ferlef |: mented preparation of the BAk: ground, cooked, peeled roots, f J a j very important in the food life y; 4 of the Hawaiian, or ‘‘Sandes °: b wich,’’ islanders, who eat it ae A SE 4, either separately, or with fish { ari ae i i or meat, or as porridge with or sugar. It isa sticky & i } paste—not of inviting appear- Tine ance to the novice but readily making devotees and of genuinely high dietetic merit. The native etiquette calls for a bow] set between two diners. Fach in turn dips three fingers in the poi and twirls them around, then pulls them out and sucks the adhering poi off them. The Dasugen (which see) is very closely related to the Pacific taros, as is also the golqas of Keypt--still grown ax it was in the days when Pliny mentioned it. The golqas (as produced to-day at all events) is greatly inferior to the taro and its consumption is confined generally to the fell a he ens, or farm-laborers oll TARPON, or Silver King. The tarpon is one of the most famous of game-fishes —it has been known to exceed a length of seven feet and a weight of 200 pounds— Dba * but its flesh (by American standards) is dry and bony. It is found along the greater part of our Atlantic coast, especially to the southward.