Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures. Corn flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas. Rye flour is a constituent of bread in both Central Europe and Northern Europe.
Tapioca is a starch extracted from the tubers of the cassava plant, a species native to the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, but whose use is now spread throughout South America. It is a perennial shrub adapted to the hot conditions of tropical lowlands. Cassava copes better with poor soils than many other food plants.
Kudzu, also called Japanese arrowroot or Chinese arrowroot, is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing deciduous perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands. It is invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America.
Maranta arundinacea, also known as arrowroot, maranta, West Indian arrowroot, obedience plant, Bermuda arrowroot, araru, araruta, ararao or hulankeeriya, is a large, perennial herb found in rainforest habitats of the Americas, but cultivated in tropical regions worldwide.
Cornflour, cornstarch, maize starch, or corn starch is the starch derived from corn (maize) grain. The starch is obtained from the endosperm of the kernel. Corn starch is a common food ingredient, often used to thicken sauces or soups, and to make corn syrup and other sugars. Corn starch is versatile, easily modified, and finds many uses in industry such as adhesives, in paper products, as an anti-sticking agent, and textile manufacturing. It has medical uses as well, such as to supply glucose for people with glycogen storage disease.
The Marantaceae are a family, the arrowroot family, or the prayer plant family, of flowering plants consisting of 31 genera and around 530 species, defining it as one of the most species-rich families in its order. Species of this family are found in lowland tropical forests of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The majority (80%) of the species are found in the American tropics, followed by Asian (11%) and African (9%) tropics. They are commonly called the prayer-plant family and are also known for their unique secondary pollination presentation.
A thickening agent or thickener is a substance which can increase the viscosity of a liquid without substantially changing its other properties. Edible thickeners are commonly used to thicken sauces, soups, and puddings without altering their taste; thickeners are also used in paints, inks, explosives, and cosmetics.
Canna indica, commonly known as Indian shot, African arrowroot, edible canna, purple arrowroot, Sierra Leone arrowroot, is a plant species in the family Cannaceae. It is native to much of South America, Central America, the West Indies, and Mexico. It is also naturalized in the southeastern United States, and much of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.
Yam is the common name for some plant species in the genus Dioscorea that form edible tubers.
Tacca leontopetaloides is a species of flowering plant in the yam family Dioscoreaceae. It is native to the islands of Southeast Asia. Austronesian peoples introduced it as a canoe plant throughout the Indo-Pacific tropics during prehistoric times. It has become naturalized to tropical Africa, South Asia, northern Australia, and Oceania. Common names include Polynesian arrowroot, Fiji arrowroot, East Indies arrowroot, pia, and seashore bat lily.
The Canna Agriculture Group contains all of the varieties of Canna used in agriculture. Canna achira and Canna edulis are generic terms used in South America to describe the cannas that have been selectively bred for agricultural purposes, normally derived from C. discolor. It is grown especially for its edible rootstock from which starch is obtained, but the leaves and young seed are also edible, and achira was once a staple foodcrop in Peru and Ecuador.
Acorn noodle soup, called dotoriguksu in Korean, is a noodle soup consisting of Korean noodles made from acorn flour or starch, salt, and a combination of grain-based flour.
Xanthosoma sagittifolium, or tannia, is a tropical flowering plant from the family Araceae. It produces an edible, starchy corm. X. sagittifolium is native to tropical America where it has been first cultivated. Around the 19th century, the plant spread to Southeast Asia and Africa and has been cultivated there ever since. X. sagittifolium is often confused with the related plant Colocasia esculenta (Taro), which looks very similar and is also used in a similar way. Both plants are often collectively named Cocoyam.
Arrowroot tea, also called kudzu tea, is a traditional East Asian tea made from East Asian arrowroot, a type of kudzu.
Maranta is a genus of flowering plants in the family Marantaceae, native to tropical Central and South America and the West Indies. Maranta was named for Bartolomeo Maranta, an Italian physician and botanist of the sixteenth century.
Goeppertia allouia, known as lerén or lairén in Spanish, and also known in English as Guinea arrowroot, and sweet corn root, is a plant in the arrowroot family, native to northern South America and the Caribbean, The name "allouia" is derived from the Carib name for the plant Lerén is a minor food crop in the American tropics, but was one of the earliest plants domesticated by pre-historic Amerindians in South America.
Kudzu powder, called géfěn (葛粉) in Chinese, kuzuko in Japanese, chik-garu (칡가루) or galbun in Korean, and bột sắn dây in Vietnamese is a starch powder made from the root of the kudzu plant. It is used in traditional East Asian cuisine mainly for thickening sauces and making various types of desserts.
Arrowroot is to an edible starch obtained from several tropical plants.
Cassava production is vital to the economy of Nigeria as the country is the world's largest producer of the commodity. The crop is produced in 24 of the country's 36 states. In 1999, Nigeria produced 33 million tonnes, while a decade later, it produced approximately 45 million tonnes, which is almost 19% of production in the world. The average yield per hectare is 10.6 tonnes.
Pueraria montana var. lobata, the East Asian arrowroot, or kudzu vine, is a perennial plant in the family Fabaceae.
