Yacon ✦

Poire de terre

What it is

It stores its carbohydrate as fructo-oligosaccharides rather than starch, which is why it is sweet, watery and crisp all at once and never softens the way a root vegetable does. It travelled late: it arrived in New Zealand as a novelty crop only in the early 1980s.

In the kitchen

Peel it and eat it raw like a pear, straight into lemon or lime juice — the cut face browns within minutes. Those same sugars are largely indigestible, so a whole root at one sitting is a genuinely bad idea for most people.

Goes with

Lime Apple Orange Mint Chili pepper Honey Avocado

Same species

Yacon syrup

In season alongside

Bell pepper Prickly pear Kiwi berry Nashi pear Apple Baek-kimchi

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