Species sheet · The Edible River
Lotus
The sacred flower whose holed root is eaten.
- Rhizome stir-fried in slices with vinegar and sesame
- Simmered in soup with pork ribs
- Seeds in desserts or sweet paste, leaves for wrapping rice
- Scientific name
- Nelumbo nucifera
- In the water
- An aquatic plant rooted in the mud of ponds, lakes and backwaters across Asia, from India to China and Japan; its round leaves and pink flowers rise above the water.
- Season & buying
- Rhizomes are harvested from late summer into winter, seeds in late summer; in France they are sold fresh or vacuum-packed in Asian grocers.
- Common length
- ~120 cm
- How to identify it
- Large round leaves held above the water, on which water beads
Pink or white cup-shaped flower with a yellow heart
Rhizome riddled with tunnels, sliced into a lacy rosette
On the plate
Crunchy, lightly sweet rhizome between potato and water chestnut; soft, floury seeds like a chestnut.
Avoid: Letting the slices brown: the rhizome oxidises as soon as it is cut, so drop it straight into vinegared water.
Its leaf sheds water so perfectly that the effect is named after it, and seeds more than a thousand years old have managed to sprout.
In Umay recipes
4 Umay recipes call for it.
