During the holidays, me and Le Patata went back home on the countryside 'cause it's my father's birthday. The in-laws at the city have some veggies requested for us to bring back home and one of of them are Taro Shoots. This isn't a popular veggie for the regular menu on some restaurants but this one is famous in small eateries and home cooking.
On the countryside, taro shoots or sometimes called Poor Man's Asparagus with young taro leaves is the go-to main ingredient for a hangover soup here in our area. In the city, I always seen it cooked as Adobong Takway. It's slimy, sometimes itchy if you don't know how to cook it properly and it leaves stain on your hands when you prepare it but still most people love taro shoots.
Since the in-laws specifically asked for this, we went to my cousin's house early in the morning. The path ahead is between the rice paddies. It has been raining for a month here and that made the path more muddy and slippery. I've been stuck in the mud for few times and same as well with the Patata. We're thankful that there's water flowing on irrigation canals above the rice paddies.
I have seen some taro shoot plants before and usually, they're growing beside the river, stream or swamps. However, I haven't seen a huge garden for Taro Shoots only and this is the first time now. There's a lot of variety for taro actually, but commonly here, we got two that's edible —taro plants meant for growing shoots and taro meant for growing root crops.
This place is a rice paddy before but since my cousin was short of capital and manpower to maintain the plantation, he converted some parts of it to Taro Shoots. He has now 4 paddies full of Taro cultivated to grow only shoots.
Actually, it's very practical. He just needs to clean the weeds regularly and have a flowing water, no need for fertilizers and taro plants would produce the shoots non-stop for the whole year round. Everytime he needs money, he'll harvest some of the shoots and deliver it on the barangay proper where most houses are located and he can survive his daily expenses just from selling taro shoots. He still got other plants like Rice and Sugarcane that could hive profit quarterly and yearly after harvest. If you're hard-working, this lifestyle might also be ideal but on some cases, it might not also suffice that's why people like me are working in the city.
My cousin also got pets and farm animals that accompany him everyday. This dog and cat right here is very clingy. This dog wouldn't like us to stop petting her. Just look at those eyes, she's very lovely. If I could just bring her home, I would. 🥰
In the end, we only got this much. We stopped my cousin halfway. We know that veggies here is cheap, that's why we only wanted to buy for Php 20 worth. But he said that since I rarely go home, he wanted to give me a lot more. Well, he is selling it for business, so I don't like to take advantage of his kindness. We got this much for almost free. Farmers are really underappreciated people. We're very grateful to bring this home when we go back after the holidays.
We can now cook adobong takway without buying expensive servings on the small eateries.