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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colocasia

This is the genus Colocasia. It includes taros and eddoes, and various species of this genus are grown and eaten for food in Asia. In Southeast Asia, the Taro arguably forms a staple crop. They're like the potatoes of the old world.

However, for some reason, taros and eddoes never seemed to spread across the silk road to the Middle East and Europe. Taros are a tropical/wet soil fruit of course, so it makes sense they'd never realistically get as far as Europe, but eddoes are more suited to dry and cold environments. So why didn't this genus, having the ability to become staple crops, travel west?

And what if it did travel west to Europe? What would happen if, during the age of the Mongols when the silk road had been revitalised, eddoes managed to make their way to Europe (preferrably somewhere like the HRE where they are alien and will be seen as a new alternative crop) and grown. Will we see a marked improvement in yields similar to what happened when the potato was introduced? Would European eddoes, through their starchy nutritiousness, be able to increase the OTL population of Europe and have flow-on effects from there?
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