Chapter 19 Taro

In the nineteenth chapter of this book, Baoyu tells stories to Daiyu. There is such a long passage, which is quoted as follows: Xiao Hua said: "Rice and beans make a storehouse, which is unforgettable. There are five kinds of fruits: 1. Red dates, 2. Chestnuts, 3. Groundnuts, 4. Water chestnut, 5. Taro."... Only one kind of taro is left.Because he drew his arrow again and asked who was going to steal the taro.I saw a very small and weak little mouse responding: "I would like to steal sweet yams."... "I don't follow their example and just steal, I just change myself into a sweet potato and roll in the pile of sweet yams." ... "I said that you haven't seen the world, you only know that this fruit is sweet taro, but you don't know that Mrs. Yan Kelin's lady is the real fragrant jade."

The northern dialect has the same pronunciation as "taro" and "jade", which is used as banter.After talking about "fragrant taro" for a long time, what exactly is fragrant taro?This is not taro (called taro in the south), but a smaller one.According to "fragrant taro", there are two theories, one is peanuts.Juan 7 quotes, "Peanuts are famous for fragrant taro", which is of course wrong.Groundnuts have been mentioned above.The second theory can be found in Volume 8 of "Compendium of Materia Medica Supplements": Soil taro is Huangdu, commonly known as fragrant taro, with white flesh and yellow skin, shaped like a small taro, also known as soil egg, which is different from wild taro. "Qunfangpu", soil taro has only one root, which is yellow in color, so it is called Huangdu.

"Chinese Pharmacy Encyclopedia" volume on Tuyu Tiao Xia Yiyun, alias Huangdu, potato, sweet taro, white meat and yellow skin, edible, it is roughly the same.The taro mentioned in this book is probably this. After all, this paragraph in the old manuscript is written as "Xiangyu" and the word "taro" is not written, there must be another reason.Although it is written about Xiangyu, the meaning still alludes to what this Xiangyu said.Otherwise, it cannot be juxtaposed with dates, chestnuts, peanuts and the like.