The Beauty of Yacon

Yacon in late October

I'm smitten with yacon, an Andean tuber with amazing health benefits. It grows easily in the Willamette Valley. First of all, the taste sweet and crunchy with just the right amount of juiciness when cured. It has been compared to a cross between celery and an apple. It feels good to eat, this may be related to its inulin, which has pre-biotic effect, it helps promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria (and discourages the growth of baddies). The inulin is an undigestible sugar (great for people with diabetes!), so it tastes sweet, but does not mess with your blood sugar. It is only available in the winter (around here ) in farmer's markets and stores that sell organic produce. (I found out after throwing the leaves away, that they are typically eaten in Peru. They can be used to wrap food while cooking, like grape leaves, or cabbage leaves are used in Mediterranean or European cultures. Live and learn, next year we will try eating the leaves, too.)

Secondly, it is so pretty, it belongs in a a flower garden!  The growth habit and the soft, fuzzy leaves remind me of tithonia, or Mexican Sunflower. If the growing season were longer here, we would see yellow daisy like flowers,  but I have not seen them bloom in my garden. I typically do not water my flower gardens much, so unless things changed (a lot), I won't be adding them to a flower border. We'll just have to settle for a more beautiful vegetable garden.

The challenge of growing yacon lies in curing and storage. I harvested late last year and lost the entire crop. This year I harvested early, when the burgundy blush of cold weather kissed the leaves. However, not sure what their needs were, I dried them out, and they require humidity to cure well. Eaten uncured, they are extremely watery and not as sweet as fully cured tubers. They have more inulin when uncured. Curing changes some of the undigestible inulin to other forms of sugar. I'm attempting to correct the humidity problem. We may eat these so fast that we will still end up buying them in the store this winter, after all.

If you do not yet know yacon, you must make her aquaintance. This much yumminess is not to be missed!