¿Yutia? ¿Cómo? or, talking tubers...

Way back when, when I started the ethnic cuisine challenge/resolution, I had this precious little idea that I'd walk into an ethnic grocery with a vague idea of what I wanted to cook, then I'd find unknown-to-me ingredients/items and ask the employees/owners how to prepare them. It would have worked in SLC. I regret never having been to one of the African grocers...

So a few months ago - wow, looking up the photos I see that it's been six months - I went to a new-to-me grocery store that looks a little warehouse-y but is closer than the one I had been going to. The produce selection was broad, and prices seemed good. As I wandered the aisles, I came to a tuber section. Yes, a little area with nothing but brown tubers in various lengths, widths, and stages of hair growth. In addition to yams, sweet potatoes, and jicama, signs read batata, malanga, casava, manioc, taro... and my new friend, yutia. A cute little older couple was picking through these tubers, arguing in Spanish about which ones to were good.

Aha! I thought. This was my chance to try to fulfill what I'd originally set out to do. I asked them in my crappy Spanish (I may have studied it for six-plus years, but my last class was in 2002) what this vegetable was, and how to prepare it. Luckily this sweet man was adept at charades, because I understood "slice it thinly" and "bake it."

So I bought some, brought it home, and promptly Googled "yutia." Yeah, it doesn't really exist on the interwebs. Results were spotty at best, and basically told me that South American indigenous peoples cultivated it. After that, I'm not sure what they did with it... It came across as some anthropological curiosity more than a vegetable you'd pick up in a suburban New York ShopRite.



So I did what the abuelito said. I peeled it and sliced it as thinly as I could, which got difficult, as this tuber was really slimy. I tossed the slices in some olive oil and salt and pepper, and stuck it in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes, tossing it again at some point in there.




When I figured my little medallions were done, it looked like they needed something more. Sour cream! That makes almost everything better. And it did, for these guys. They were still pretty chewy. Pretty bland. One big "meh," you know? But they reminded me of something. I couldn't place it for a few days.



Bam. Top left. Thanks to the "exotic vegetable chip identifier" at Terra Chips' website, I had known this previously as taro... Good to know. There are plenty of recipes out there for taro. It seems like a lot of these starchy/slimy tubers are interchangeable, as far as recipes go. But I'd wanted to do something uniquely yutia... Chips, so original, I know.

Today, six months after starting the yutia journey, I re-Googled "yutia recipe." And got results, including this one for a Filipino tapioca stewy-desserty-thing called tabirak o binignit o ginataan. I ♥ Filipino food, so who knows, maybe I'll give this (and tapioca, eek) a shot sometime.

Also among the Google results: "Did you mean: yautia recipe"

Turns out that yes, yes I did mean "yautia recipe." Where the heck was that six months ago?!? Next time I get a bug to buy it, I know where to find recipes.

Except that I ended up switching back to the other supermarket.