Eaten lion's head meatballs but never seen a water chestnut in person? Authentic Taiwan water chestnuts are fragrant, sweet and rare, and water chestnut farmers are scarcer than ever

If you had to name the most low-key crop that can still steal the show, the water chestnut would definitely be on the list! It appears everywhere in traditional Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine, and the crisp, springy bite of the classic New Year dish lion's head meatballs is thanks to the water chestnut. However, because cultivating water chestnuts is labor-intensive, the handful of water chestnut farmers has dwindled with the passing years, and the domestic planting area keeps shrinking.

Food expert Xu Zhong says water chestnuts have a sugarcane-like fragrance when eaten, and that most water chestnuts on the market now come from China, but they are far inferior in aroma to domestically grown water chestnuts. Veteran Chinese cuisine chef Yu Bifang says that when choosing water chestnuts you should pick plump ones that feel firm in the hand, and you must choose ones with the skin on: "Only water chestnuts with the skin on can be stored for a long time."

The water chestnut is an aquatic herbaceous plant; ma shu, wu yu and ma ti all refer to the water chestnut

The correct pronunciation of water chestnut is "ㄅㄧˊㄑㄧˊ". The water chestnut has many alternative names, including ma shu, ma ti, di li, wu yu, pu qi, di li and shao. In the Book of the Later Han, in the Biography of Liu Xuan, it was called fu ci, and it was not until the Compendium of Materia Medica appeared that Li Shizhen said: "Wu yu: its root is like a taro but dark in color. Wild ducks like to eat it, so the Erya calls it fu ci, and fu ci was later miswritten as bi qi." From then on, the name water chestnut was fixed.

The water chestnut originated in India, North Africa, the Pacific islands, Southeast Asia, Australia and the area of southern China. It is a perennial aquatic herbaceous plant, and in Taiwan the growing areas are mostly distributed around Taichung, Changhua and Chiayi. The water chestnut has underground runners, and the front end swells to become a corm, but the native water chestnut of Taiwan does not form corms on its underground stems; its above-ground stems are green on the surface and grow in clumps, finally producing brown flowers and fruit.

Water chestnuts are nutritious, with a potassium content higher than bananas,Domestic water chestnuts are fragrant and sweet

Water chestnuts taste sweet and crisp, and are rich in protein, fat, crude fiber, carotene, vitamin B, vitamin C, iron, calcium and carbohydrates. According to data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare's "Food Nutrient Composition Database", water chestnuts are rich in minerals, with a potassium content as high as 461mg, even higher than that of bananas.

Because the fiber of the water chestnut is spherical, it easily absorbs debris and can help clean out the intestines. Water chestnuts can be eaten in many ways, either raw (the eyes and outer skin must be thoroughly removed) or cooked.

Water chestnuts are almost always used in Chinese cuisine, including the common New Year dishes lion's head meatballs and eight-treasure meatballs, and they also appear in everyday shrimp rolls and Taiwanese stewed soups, while the water chestnut flour used to make the dessert ma ti gao is also processed from water chestnuts. Xu Zhong explains that few water chestnuts are grown domestically now and most on the market come from China: "Water chestnuts have a sugarcane-like fragrance when eaten, but Chinese water chestnuts cannot match domestic ones in either aroma or sweetness."

Water chestnuts give dishes a crisp texture, and jicama can achieve the same effect, but Xu Zhong believes the taste and texture of water chestnuts and jicama are quite different: raw jicama tastes like a pear, while the sweet finish and texture of water chestnuts are relatively finer. The same dish can use different ingredients in different regions; take eight-treasure meatballs as an example, those in Pingtung use jicama, while those in Tainan mostly use water chestnuts.

The peak era of water chestnuts has passed, and water chestnut farmers are extremely rare

Water chestnuts were once a crop every household in Puyan Township, Changhua County, had to plant, with hundreds of hectares grown at their peak. According to data from the Council of Agriculture, in 2019 the total water chestnut planting area in Taiwan was only 5.97 hectares, with an annual output of just over one hundred metric tons. Although data from the past ten years shows water chestnut production areas in Xihu, Yanpu and Tianzhong in Changhua, when these areas' farmers' associations were actually called to ask, their staff were quite unfamiliar with this crop.

Water chestnut farmers are even rarer. Only after asking around extensively was Zhang Zhiming found, the only "organic water chestnut farmer" in Taiwan. Zhang Zhiming has about 35 years of farming experience and grows organic taro in Waipu, Taichung. About 15 to 20 years ago, when he visited southern Taiwan, he happened to see water chestnuts grown in rotation with rice. Finding it interesting, he began learning to grow water chestnuts: "Very few people were growing them even then, and the gentleman who taught me back then has now passed away."

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