Unidentified Root in Chinatown?

[mudbug]

What is this root vegetable in the Asian markets please? Vietnamese use it for a dessert, Chinese use it for soup. It is not cassava or taro.

 

Any insight into phonetic pronunciation, scientific name, cultivars, use, recipes, medicinal properties, etc would be appreciated.

[pastrygirl]

I don't know, it looks a lot like taro, just more gnarled.  Maybe a sweet potato or yam of some sort? 

[liuzhou]

Are you 100% sure it's not taro? There are many different types of taro.

 

Did you buy any? Is it possible to show the inside?

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I do love a mystery.

 

I could not find an exact match. The taro I am familiar with has more pronounced circular belts around it and it has more coarse hairs coming out.

 

@mudbug's photos strike me as sweet potatoes, of which I am so proud we grow so many of here in my home state. Come to find out in my research, that the whole USA produces only 1 million tonnes of the world crop, with China producing a completely overwhelming 81.7 million tonnes! Knowledge is always good, but sometimes very  humbling, which is also probably good once one adjusts.  

 

Sweet potatoes come in many skin and flesh colors, which may or may not match in the same tuber.

 

Here's a link to one that has a picture that looks maybe like mudbug's images except, the one in the link is fresher and not as dried out. Here's another link from the same site with an image of a baked white sweet potato where the author says something about this variety being more perishable than other sweet potatoes.

 

I will be interested to see if a definitive answer is ever arrived at.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes
percentages to million tonnes and other ramblings (log)

[Wild_Yeast]

Those look like regular sweet potato with white flesh. In the Philippines we have a snack called Kamote-Q, we use that type of sweet potato, peeled, sliced an inch thick then skewered in bbq sticks. They're deep fried, and when they're halfway cooked you sprinkle brown sugar all over it and back into the deep fryer it goes till it's fully cooked and the sugar is melted and is coating the sweet potato in a thin brown sugar shell. 

[liuzhou]

There are also may types of sweet potatoes. I think those ones have been fossilised, though!

Edited September 4, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

35 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

There are also may types of sweet potatoes. I think those ones have been fossilised, though!

 

 

He He. Google image search (lame as always, but with such amazing promise!) identified the first image by the OP correctly as "root vegetable", and the second image as "rock". So fossil is not so far off. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

1 hour ago, Wild_Yeast said:

Those look like regular sweet potato with white flesh. In the Philippines we have a snack called Kamote-Q, we use that type of sweet potato, peeled, sliced an inch thick then skewered in bbq sticks. They're deep fried, and when they're halfway cooked you sprinkle brown sugar all over it and back into the deep fryer it goes till it's fully cooked and the sugar is melted and is coating the sweet potato in a thin brown sugar shell. 

 

I hope that deep fryer or wok is a lot easier to clean than I am imagining it to be. I can't see all the sugar staying put without coming loose into the oil.

 

That snack looks wonderful, though.

[Wild_Yeast]

It's messy business making these at home so normally we walk out to the street hawker and let him deal with the cleanin up lol 

[Jaymes]

10 hours ago, Wild_Yeast said:

Those look like regular sweet potato with white flesh. In the Philippines we have a snack called Kamote-Q,

 

Like so many words used in the Philippines, Spanish is similar.  Although there are several terms for "sweet potatoes" in Spanish, in Mexico and the US Southwest, the most-often heard is "camote."  

[mudbug]

Thank you all for your guesses. Kudzu has been confirmed via other people.

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by mudbug
More info (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Does anyone know if this kudzu is the same as this one? We have kudzu vines all over the southern US, but I have never heard of anyone eating the roots.

[mudbug]

Yes. It is Pueraria. However the variety or cultivar is unknown. 

[Ashen]

Eddoes possibly 

[Beebs]

Aka. Arrowroot?  "Fen ge" in Mandarin (second link posted by Thanks for the Crepes).  Mom puts it in soup - very tasty soup, although the souped-out arrowroot is rather dry, bland & unappealing.