Colocasia runner (kochur loti)

Colocasia esculenta · Vegetable

40 pairings

The colocasia runner, known in Bengali as kochur loti and in Assamese as kosu loti, is the tender flowering stalk of the taro plant — the long, slender, pale-green stem that shoots up bearing the plant's inflorescence, cut young before it toughens. A prized monsoon-season delicacy of Bengal, Assam and Odisha, it cooks to a soft, mucilaginous, faintly sweet vegetable with a clean earthy taste, always eaten cooked because the raw stalk stings the mouth with needle-like calcium-oxalate crystals.

Picking a good onedrag

Just cut, snaps wetWoody, limp, slimy

Market freshThe workaday stalk. Scrape, cut short, parboil and drain, then cook it right through with tamarind or lime. Never taste a piece raw.Everyday loti

Skin and colourMatte, the film scuffed, stalk still firm and full

Snap one (oil your hands)Snaps, break face damp, a thread or two showing

The cut endDamp and pale, the sap gone tacky

Smell at the bundleGreen and neutral, almost nothing

What to look for, from just cut, snaps wet to woody, limp, slimy.

Preparing