Fresh Chinese Water Chestnuts

There are several species of the genus Trapa that are called water chestnuts, but I refer to Eleocharis dulcis, the crunchy, slightly sweet corms that we all know from Chinese restaurants in America, where canned ones are often paired with snow pea pods, and from cocktail parties, where they appear wrapped in bacon (a mock Polynesian appetizer called “rumaki,” probably invented by Trader Vic). I was shocked to pick up the second edition of the Oxford Companion to Food (2006), a nearly 1000-page encyclopedia that is generally regarded as definitive, and to find no mention of Eleocharis under the entry for water chestnut (which is neither a nut nor a chestnut). I jumped to conclusions and did some sloppy reading and writing before Anne Mendelson pointed out to me that I had missed their entry, “Chinese water chestnut,” that distinguishes it from the Trapa varieties. Common names are always problematic. Eleocharis is a type of water grass that emerges from these corms.