I was not actually being very correct last time when I wrote that my
tuberous adventures in 2014 were entirely restricted to sweet potato
cultivation. There is one other rather exotic crop that I got my hands on this
year. In fact, this is probably one of the most exotic tubers out there,
eclipsing the humble sweet potato by lunar magnitudes. I am speaking, of course,
of mirabilis expansa aka mauka, miso or chago, an Andean root vegetable that is
as deliciousy mysterious as its multiple names suggest.
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| Mirabilis expansa |
Since my ambitions in growing Andean root vegetables far outweigh my
patience in actually acquiring the plant material, I have recently gone ahead
and purchased Lost Crops of the Incas, the 1989 standard work for aspiring
cultivators of unusual and long-forgotten plants from the Andes. The book
contains some intriguing facts about mauka. Believed to have been a staple crop
of the Incas, mauka was completely unknown to scientists (a fate that many an
animal and plant species would probably benefit from) until the beginning of
the 1960s, when it was found being cultivated in remote parts of Ecuador,
Bolivia and Peru. Growing at altitudes above 2700 meters, it is said to be
particularly tolerant of harsh conditions, which of course makes it a promising
plant to try in more Northern latitudes. Its alleged ability to grow to
mythical proportions over the course of one or sometimes multiple seasons (it
appears to be a perennial though its frost tolerance is uncertain) has inspired
some people to describe it as some kind of Andean cassava. Frank Van Keirsbilck told me they tend to weigh 800g to 2kg after one growing season in his
garden. As most tuber crops, mauka is believed to be very nutritious, and, more
importantly perhaps, is also reported to be delicious. Descriptions on the
internet place the taste somewhere in between potato, parsnip, and sweet potato.
Now, these just happen to be three of my favourite foods in the world, so there
was plenty of reason here to make me very excited indeed.
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| Harvesting mauka |
I was then quite pleased last spring when I managed to acquire two cuttings
of the CIP208001 variety (courtesy of Rhizowen, and actually also of Frank, who
is the original source of the plant in Europe and who also sent me cuttings, though
these didn’t survive the onslaught of the Belgian/Swedish postal system). Since
this was probably one of the first times that mauka graced these parts of the
world with its presence, I first pampered the cuttings on my balcony until they
seemed strong enough to stand their own in the real world. For space
reasons (read: I’m horrible at planning) they ended up in the border of my
garden, where they soon took off and seemed happy enough. Nothing really seemed
to disturb them very much, not even the vole invasion in the nextdoor sweet
potato patch or the biblical floods in early autumn that temporarily turned my
garden into an miserable wetland. Though apparently not daylight-sensitive like
many other Andean crops, Mauka roots seem to bulk up fairly slowly, and it was
therefore good fortune that the first frost came fairly late this year, just a
few days ago in fact. The frost was very mild and killed just the top leaves,
leaving much of the foliage undamaged, so I could probably have left the plants in
the ground for a while longer. Impatient gardener that I however am, I didn’t want to
wait any longer so I harvested the rest of the leaves for salads and
ommelette-fillings (and pretty tasty they were too!) and dug up the roots. Amazingly,
I already found some new growth sprouting from the top of the roots, so this
certainly is a plant that wants to grow.
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| The two underwhelming tubers... on a piece of A4... |
I hope this does not turn into a trend on this blog, but the harvest, dear
reader, was not exactly something to write home about. The two tubers weighed
about 150g each. My plan was to eat one, and save the best one to resprout next
year, but at 150g that seemed somewhat premature to say the least. I’ve therefore postponed the
taste test to next year and stored both of the roots on my unheated attic (for lack of a better option), where I hope it will be cold enough to keep them from
sprouting too soon. I’ve previously also taken a dozen or so cuttings that are
happily growing new leaves at the moment, and I have received at least one new
variety (mauka blanca) to try next year. Together this should give me
plenty of plant material to carry out a proper trial next year, in the absolute best
spot my garden has to offer. It’s all uphill from here for mirabilis expansa!
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| The 2015 mauka babies |
