Calalou (colocasia esculenta) is a German word for taro. Taro, is widely grown in the tropics for food and as an ornamental planting. The edible tubers are used in Poi and the young shoots are blanched and used as a winter vegetable. Young taro leaves are cooked and eaten like spinach in many regions, and young shoots are sometimes forced and blanched in the dark to produce a vegetable that tastes something like mushrooms.