Elephant foot yam
Amorphophallus paeoniifolius · Tuber
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The elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius) is the huge, rounded, flattened underground corm of a tropical aroid grown across South and Southeast Asia as a staple and cash vegetable — known as suran, ol or jimikand in India and by many local names elsewhere. Beneath a rough, knobbly dark-brown skin lies dense, starchy, pinkish-cream to white flesh that cooks soft and earthy-nutty; raw or under-cooked it is acrid and throat-prickling and so is always eaten cooked.
Picking a good onedrag
Just lifted, uncuredSprouted, rotting
Cured and dormantBuy itThe all-rounder, and the state it keeps in — a month on a dry rack, longer in a cool store: boil, steam, fry, or simmer it into a soured curry.
CrownScar healed dry and corky, no bud showing
HeftHeavy and hard right through, skin taut
Skin and cut faceSkin dry and tight, grazes corked over, flesh pale
Smell at the cutFaint, dry, clean starch
Keeping ittap a temperature
Ten degrees is the coldest hold documented for a whole corm; colder is untested, and like taro it is a tropical corm, so the fridge is for cut pieces only, used in days.
60–75%
Humidity
Free, on open racks
Airflow