O’Keefe et al. (2005) reported processing, marketing and financial studies of commercial taro chips. Interviews with a number of distributors and retailers suggested that taro chips would be best pitched towards the premium indulgence segment of the salty snack market. This segment of the market is growing and would best suit the proposed product’s distinctive appearance. In Hawaii, taro chips are produced predominantly for the tourism market. In the technical evaluation of the project, taro corms of 9 months old were harvested, peeled, sliced, fried, drained and salted.
Numerous trials were conducted to determine the optimal slice thickness, oil temperature and frying time. The range of slice thicknesses studied included 2.0, 1.5, 1.2 and 1.0 mm, and the slices were deep fried in sunflower oil at 185–190 °C for times varying between 45 and 90 sec. After optimizing the thickness and frying time, the effect of taro maturity was studied using 10 months and 12 months taro maturities. A trial also investigated the quality of chips made from three different frying oils, namely sunflower oil, palm oil and cottonseed oil. As a result, slice thickness of between 1.5 and 1.75mm, cooked for 60 sec at 180–185 °C with 7 % salt addition produced chips with the most uniform colour and texture. It was equally shown from their study that taro stirring during the initial 20 sec of frying was essential to prevent the chips for sticking together. In addition, frying operated in cottonseed yields chips of the most acceptable colour, texture and flavor. Taro harvested at 9 months was most suitable for chips preparation. At 12 months harvesting, taro needs pretreatment to offer desirable chips. In this respect, water blanching of the taro slices at 90 °C for 3–5 minutes was the most effective treatment. They also found that reducing sugars and moisture were differently distributed in the corms, with the middle having the highest moisture and reducing sugars. In addition, chips made from the top of the taro corm were a darker colour than chips produced from the middle of the corm.
For the study of the effect of different storage conditions of the taro corms on the final chip quality, they found that corm stored for 1 week at either 4 or 10 °C had no substantial loss in chip quality. However, two weeks storage resulted in undesirable browning in chips. Taro chips acceptability was rated between neither like and nor dislike. The taro chips were qualified as slightly on the small size and were not quite crunchy enough. Taro chips were most accepted for thickness and saltiness at 1.5–1.75 cm and 7 % of salt, respectively.
9.2.4 Conclusion and Future Aspects
Several bakeries and snack technologies have been applied successfully to taro. While bread technology is still at the research level, pastries and snacks are being tested or exploited at home or industrial scale. Taro flour, one of the major principal ingredients, is in most of the cases obtained by boiling the corms, grinding, sifting and packaging. Up to 15 % of taro flour can be used in bread, while in cookies a level of 60 % can be used. The tropics, Asia and the Pacific Islands might be the major areas where taro is being used in bakeries and snacks. These products are actually commercialized in the world under various brand names. Other regions of the world where taro is an important crop, in particular Africa, might also gain from this experience. Other bakeries and snacks need to be explored, not only from the technological aspect, but also for the financial aspect. In addition, improvements on existing technologies based on consumer’s perception will definitely make the products more attractive.
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