A starch from St. Vincent once earned nearly half the island's exports
From the 1930s to the 1960s, arrowroot starch supplied close to 50 percent of St. Vincent's foreign earnings and most rural jobs. It also went into early carbonless copy paper. The plant has been farmed in the Americas for about 7,000 years, and its name may come from an Arawak phrase meaning meal of meals.
Arrowroot is a starch rather than a single plant. The classic source is the rhizome of Maranta arundinacea, but Florida arrowroot, Polynesian pia, kudzu and cassava tapioca are sold or used the same way, and in Kenya the word refers to taro. In the Philippines, where it is called uraro, the starch forms the base of a well-loved cookie.
Archaeology shows it was grown in the Americas around 7,000 years ago. One theory derives the name from aru-aru in the language of the Caribbean Arawak, for whom it was a staple; another links it to its use on wounds from poisoned arrows, supposedly drawing out the toxin. Its neatly sized grains once made it a key ingredient in carbonless copy paper, until a cheap way of separating wheat flour by centrifuge replaced it.
St. Vincent built an industry on it. Originally food and medicine for the Carib and Garifuna, it expanded as sugar declined in the 19th century and became a major export between 1900 and 1965. Ruined 19th-century factories still sit in the island's valleys. Bananas later won farmers over, and by 1998 to 1999 output had fallen to 142,000 kg, about 3 percent of the 1960s peak. Growing now concentrates north of the Rabacca River around Owia, home to many people of Carib descent, on about 3,700 hectares, 80 percent of it worked by smallholders.
Harvest runs from October to May, with each shoot replanted as its rhizome is broken off, and women make up much of the workforce. The rhizomes hold about 23 percent starch. Processors peel away bitter papery scales, pulp the roots, strain the milky liquid and let the insoluble starch settle before drying it. Pure arrowroot is a white powder that crackles like fresh snow when pressed and cooks into a smooth jelly; it was often adulterated with cheaper potato starch.
Source: Arrowroot
