I happened upon some taro root in my travels the other day; I'd been wanting to try this particular recipe for some time, so got some. Taro is the root of the colocasia plant, widely used in Caribbean cuisine; it's native to southern India and the Romans did know it, though they don't seem to have made extensive use of it. It has a slightly sweet taste to it, sort of like a combination of potato and chestnut. It goes by a lot of names depending on the culture, which is probably why I'd had a hard time finding it before; this time though it was nicely labelled 'taro' so I grabbed some. They look like this, incidentally:
(Picture from Wikipedia)
You don't want to eat them raw, as they'll do nasty things to you, but they're fine once cooked. The ones I got were labelled both 'taro' and 'eddoe' which supposedly aren't quite the same thing, and now I'm a little confused; they're very closely related though and both types of colocasia (at least according to Wikipedia).
I'm going to give three recipes here, as the one I actually used refers back to the others.
[6.8.8] pullum elixum ex iure suo: teres piper cuminum timi modicum feniculi semen mentam rutam laseris radicem; suffundis acetum, adicies caroetam et teres. melle aceto liquamine et oleo temperabis. pullum refrigeratum et mittis siccatum, quem perfusum inferes.
[6.8.9] pullum elixum cum cucurbitis elixis: iure supra scripto, addito sinape, perfundis et inferes.
[6.8.10] pullum elixum cum cologasiis elixis: supra scripto iure perfundis et inferes. farcies inelixum etiam oliuis columbaribus, non ualde ita ut laxamentum habeat ne dissiliat dum quoquitur in ollam submissus in sportellam. cum bullierit, frequenter leuas et ponis ne dissiliat.
6.8.8. Chicken boiled in its own sauce: pound pepper, cumin, a little thyme, fennel seed, mint, rue, laser root; pour on vinegar, add date and pound. Flavour with honey, vinegar, liquamen and oil. Cool and dry the chicken and serve in the sauce.
6.8.9. Boiled chicken with boiled gourds: pour the sauce written above, with the addition of mustard, over the chicken and serve.
6.8.10. Boiled chicken with boiled taros: pour over the sauce written above and serve. You can also stuff the un-boiled bird with preserved olives, but not with too many, so that some space remains and it does not burst while it is cooking in the pot, lowered there in a basket. When it is boiling lift it out and replace it frequently so it does not burst.
The authors note that other translators have considered 6.8.10 to be two recipes, but they opted to give it as one; I don't think the olives part has much to do with the taro part, myself. But given I was just making a single chicken piece as a trial rather than a whole chicken, stuffing it with anything wasn't an option anyway.
My guess:
1 half split chicken breast, bone in and skin on
1 taro root (about the size of a medium potato)
a few peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
a few mint leaves, shredded
a few small sprigs of rue, chopped
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida
2 teaspoons vinegar
2 dates, chopped
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
Put the chicken in a saucepan with enough water to cover (about three cups) and bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Grind the seeds and spices in a morter, then add the leaves and grind to a paste; add a teaspoon of the vinegar to loosen it up and put in with the chicken. Grind the dates as best you can in the mortar, then add the honey to make a very sticky mess. Add the remaining vinegar to thin and the liquamen if also necessary; throw it all in with the chicken with the oil and the mustard and give it a good stir.
When the chicken is getting towards done (twenty minutes to a half hour depending on its size), peel the taro and cut it into chunks, then put in with the chicken; cook at least another fifteen minutes longer. When both the chicken and taro are cooked, fish them out and put them on a plate. Bring the sauce to a boil and let reduce till fairly thick, then pour over the chicken and taro and serve.
You could of course use whatever cut of chicken you prefer; I opted for a split breast because I figured the skin and bones would give it a bit more flavor (plain skinned breasts can be really very bland). I had to sort of do the grinding in stages given the small size of my mortar but it all worked and I actually did manage to get the dates to a genuine paste; when the sauce was cooked there were no little bits of date at all. Grocock and Grainger do mention that dried fruits were probably soaked before being ground, which does make a lot of sense.
So, this was really very good; the chicken was quite tasty even though it was boiled, and the taro was lovely and sweet and absorbed quite a bit of the flavor of the sauce. Strangely enough I couldn't taste half the herbs in it on their own—I would never have guessed there was mint in it, for example—but they all came together into something rich and a little sweet. I could taste the mustard (which I did want to), but even that wasn't overpowering.
The only problem I had with it was that there was a tiny bit of bitterness to it, though I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It seemed to be in the sauce, but there should have been plenty of honey in there to counteract the rue; I wonder if it was the asafoetida, but I don't know. In researching taro for this, though, I learned that the eddoe variety is known to have a bit of an acrid taste, so I wonder if that was it, though it did seem to be in the sauce. Other than that, though (which might be cured by adding just a little more honey), it was very good, and I'm going to consider it a keeper.
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