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A street snack that has baffled botanists

atlasobscura.com

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Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#71

Post by grenoire »

wombatmobile wrote: post #67

> Wikipedia identified the scientific name of the plant as Maerua oblongifolia, but had no photos of it. How about this photo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia#/media/Fil... In this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia Maerua oblongifolia (syn. Maerua arenaria, Niebhuria arenaria) is a low woody bushy under-shrub sometimes scandent to 2–3 meters high, with a thick root…

There is literally a Doubt section there, the page isn't well-cited on the food bit.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#72

Post by trompetenaccoun »

esjeon wrote: post #31

The whole business sounds very shady. It's likely that the plant is sourced from the side of roads, untended fields, forests, construction companies (selling anything they find for coffee money), etc. It's a completely black area, outside of food regulations, so they can't expose the actual source, no matter what. This can also explain the confusing reports from multiple researchers, because academic "species" don't…

It's Indian street food so I'd say what you describe is the optimistic scenario. Worst case it's an industrial product of sorts, produced backyard factories. South Asia has a huge variety of culinary plants and snacks, some of which are unknown even to locals, especially if it's a regional thing. But that no one would know and no one wants to talk about what it is, that's highly suspicious.

It's really sad, China and India have among the best food in the world but they also have among the worst food safety record. Almost anything can be faked or adulterated for profit, from cooking oil that makes people go blind to instant baby formula that kills the infants.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#73

Post by wombatmobile »

apocolyps6 wrote: post #65
wombatmobile wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except, as mentioned in the article, they _did_ look into it, to the extent of DNA testing it! What do your experts make of this wikipedia article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia

If you read 4 paragraphs into that article, you will find out

Try harder and follow the links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlwOrdciEX8

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#74

Post by wombatmobile »

grenoire wrote: post #71
wombatmobile wrote: post #67

> Wikipedia identified the scientific name of the plant as Maerua oblongifolia, but had no photos of it. How about this photo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia#/media/Fil... In this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia Maerua oblongifolia (syn. Maerua arenaria, Niebhuria arenaria) is a low woody bushy under-shrub sometimes scandent to 2–3 meters high, with a thick root…

There is literally a Doubt section there, the page isn't well-cited on the food bit.

What do you make of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlwOrdciEX8

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7sn42heQ2w

Have you ever been to the Champavat region of Uttarakhand?

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#75

Post by achow »

esjeon wrote: post #31

The whole business sounds very shady. It's likely that the plant is sourced from the side of roads, untended fields, forests, construction companies (selling anything they find for coffee money), etc. It's a completely black area, outside of food regulations, so they can't expose the actual source, no matter what. This can also explain the confusing reports from multiple researchers, because academic "species" don't…

There is no food 'regulation' for the snacks sold in open cart. There are innumerable varieties of such snack which are not 'mysterious'.

This seems to be 'mysterious' because of the writing skill of the author. She successfully managed to create a buzz.

If finding the answer was the goal it could have been easily found out by offering 10X-50X (approx $150-$700 = Annual income perhaps) the money they offered mentioned in the article as a proposition to take over their business and as part of that asking them to show the source of the 'supply'.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#76

Post by simonh »

drubio wrote: post #39

This 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…

According to the article it’s not actually the root, that’s just a story the vendors tell, it’s the stem.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#77

Post by achow »

acchow wrote: post #62
esjeon wrote: post #31

The whole business sounds very shady. It's likely that the plant is sourced from the side of roads, untended fields, forests, construction companies (selling anything they find for coffee money), etc. It's a completely black area, outside of food regulations, so they can't expose the actual source, no matter what. This can also explain the confusing reports from multiple researchers, because academic "species" don't…

With multiple layers of middlemen, it's possible the vendors don't even know what the source is.

This would be thin margin, low volume business and usually these cart owners source all the raw materials directly.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#78

Post by sterlind »

bobsmooth wrote: post #51
notatoad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the headline certainly follows the clickbait tropes. But in this case, it appears to be legit - experts actually don't know and the vendors keep it a closely guarded secret.

It kills me that every researcher the writer contacted has never actually seen the plant or bothered to go look for it, including the guy that studied agave!

that's academia for you. lots of book smarts, useless at street smarts.

Re: A street snack that has baffled botanists

#79

Post by simonh »

achow wrote: post #75
esjeon wrote: post #31

The whole business sounds very shady. It's likely that the plant is sourced from the side of roads, untended fields, forests, construction companies (selling anything they find for coffee money), etc. It's a completely black area, outside of food regulations, so they can't expose the actual source, no matter what. This can also explain the confusing reports from multiple researchers, because academic "species" don't…

There is no food 'regulation' for the snacks sold in open cart. There are innumerable varieties of such snack which are not 'mysterious'. This seems to be 'mysterious' because of the writing skill of the author. She successfully managed to create a buzz. If finding the answer was the goal it could have been easily found out by offering 10X-50X (approx $150-$700 = Annual income perhaps) the money they offered mentione…

Not if it’s actually toxic. In that case revealing the source could get them in serious trouble and wouldn’t be worth it at any price.
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