“The mysterious that has baffled for ” — Click bait sub editor
I'm not sure what your point is; the title is an entirely accurate summary of the content of the article.
I didn't read the article because it looked like click bait.
A street snack that has baffled botanists
41–50 of 204 posts
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read the article they say the specific Agave that they linked to using DNA analysis.
Species doesn't mean as much in the plant world. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kohlrabi, and gai lan are all Brassica oleracea . You can have specimens that are even technically the same cultivar but wildly different alimentary character.
TIL that the vegetable aisle has half the species I thought it did.
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of "baffled scientists for decades" is more that the scientists know about it but have never taken time to look as there are other things to do. It is a ridiculous spin.
Except, as mentioned in the article, they _did_ look into it, to the extent of DNA testing it! And still didn't come to a particularly satisfactory conclusion. "It might be an agave, but also the agave expert says agaves aren't like that" is about as far as anyone seems to have gotten.
So, it's an unclassified botanical specimen. That's not really a "mystery". It's just an unclassified botanical specimen.
This makes the product application of the root even less mysterious:
"It was seasoned with salt, chili powder, and lime; my husband’s had sugar and lime. It was crunchy, juicy, and refreshing, but had no taste of its own."
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#44seems like palm tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkSeFP5Jjt8
Palm tree heart is layered and fairly brittle, Even if you could slice it as thin as they sell the snack, it would just come apart.
The pictures in the article don't show that arrangement, it's more of a single fibrous block.
I've eaten plenty of fresh palm-tree heart, you either slice it thin it to eat raw or cook it in larger blocks, in say some curry.
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#45Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#46seems like palm tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkSeFP5Jjt8
Palm tree heart is layered and fairly brittle, Even if you could slice it as thin as they sell the snack, it would just come apart. The pictures in the article don't show that arrangement, it's more of a single fibrous block. I've eaten plenty of fresh palm-tree heart, you either slice it thin it to eat raw or cook it in larger blocks, in say some curry.
yes, it is layered
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#47This looks like a giant variety of 'Pachyrhizus erosus' or Jicama, which is also a street snack widely sold in Mexico. I'v never seen ones as large as the one in the article, but the watery texture and how it's condimented (lemon, sugar, salt, chili powder) is exactly like Jicama. Seems wikipedia has a reference to ones as large as 2 meters and 20 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus so it may be like…
If this is an agave, it would be different from the plants that you're familiar with since it grows in a different country, no?
Edit: Growing conditions can drastically impact the development of a plant, am I wrong?
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bhoochakara Gadda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wTzOU-tt4U
Seems more likely. Texture and size seem to match the article. Good find.
Doesn't the article debunk this in the first paragraphs?
That night, I googled Bhoochakara Gadda. There wasn’t much. Wikipedia identified the scientific name of the plant as Maerua oblongifolia, but had no photos of it. Maerua oblongifolia is a low, woody, undershrub found in India, Pakistan, parts of Africa, and Saudi Arabia, whose tubers are sold as snacks and used as a stimulant in the ancient medicine system of Siddha, I read. Research papers showed its leaves and flowers but not the root. So I decided to dig in.
I had a breakthrough a few months later when I came across a thesis paper by Dr. MS Rathore, who had propagated Maerua oblongifolia in the lab in 2011. He had seen the tree many times in the desert state of Rajasthan. “But I haven’t heard or seen anybody eating the root,” the scientist said over a call, sounding puzzled.
“Its roots are sparse and inedible,” added Dr. NS Shekhawat, his thesis adviser and a retired professor of botany. “Growing in dry regions, where will it have so much water to develop big roots and be fat and juicy? [The snack] can’t be Maerua oblongifolia.”
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks somehow I missed that. Incompetent reading! Obviously we're not in possession of all the facts here but it sounds like incompetent spying to me. Much more difficult operations are carried out every single day.
They might not have had the amount of budget necessary to observe them from a drone for months
A drone seems like overkill.
Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists
#50I read this article elsewhere. I don't quite get why it says no one know's, then it's genetically and visually matched to a type of agave, and then they go back to not knowing? It seems some of the counter argument is assuming that "Agave" are all the same when specific types will have specific traits. Otherwise it's an interesting read.
Look at the wikipedia article for agave. The varied species are quite different from each other.