page_title: Taro
section_title: West Africa
hierarchical_section_title: Taro / Uses / Culinary / Africa / West Africa
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le taro est un plat d'honneur préparé pour attendre des invités de marque
context_page_description: Colocasia esculenta is a tropical plant grown primarily for its edible corms, a root vegetable most commonly known as taro, or kalo in Hawaiian. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae which are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African, Oceanic and South Asian cultures, and taro is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants.
context_section_description: Taro is consumed as a staple crop in West Africa, particularly in Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.  It is called cocoyam in Nigeria, Ghana and Anglophone Cameroon, macabo in Francophone Cameroon, and ede in Igbo language. Cocoyam is often boiled, fried, or roasted and eaten with a sauce. In Ghana, it substitutes for plantain in making fufu when plantains are out of season. It is also cut into small pieces to make a soupy baby food and appetizer called mpotompoto. It is also common in Ghana to find cocoyam chips (deep-fried slices, about 1 mm (¹⁄₃₂ in) thick). Cocoyam leaves, locally called kontomire in Ghana, are a popular vegetable for local sauces such as palaver sauce and egusi/agushi stew. It is also commonly consumed in Guinea and parts of Senegal, as a leaf sauce or as a vegetable side, and is referred to as jaabere in the local Pulaar dialect.
caption: Preparing taro in Cameroon
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