Alan Davidson

Suram

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

suram Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (formerly campanulatus), also known as elephant’s foot yam (because the large rhizome is thought to resemble an elephant’s foot) or telinga potato, is a root crop related to taro in the arum lily family. Of the numerous species in the genus only two are cultivated: suram itself, mainly in India, but also in SE Asia; and konjak, A. rivieri (see konnyaku), mainly in Japan.

A curious feature of the scores of species in this genus is the highly disagreeable smell of the inflorescence, like that of rotting meat. This attracts flies, which pollinate it. The ‘amorphous phallus’ of the generic name, a horrifying concept, is justified by the crumpled, shapeless form of the spadix which projects from the inflorescence. (The spadix can be of awesome size; one inedible species found in Sumatra has a spadix 2 m/6' long.)