Heart of palm
Heart of palm is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees, most notably the coconut, juçara, açaí palm, palmetto, and peach palm. Heart of palm may be eaten on its own, and often it is eaten in a salad. Hearts of palm are traditionally harvested in the cultures of Southeast Asia and in South and Central America.
Names
Major local names for heart of palm include:- palm cabbage
- palmetto, palmito in South and Central America;
- ubod and umbut
- củ hủ dừa in Vietnam;
- Latinates cœur de palmier ; corazón de palma or col de palma ; coração de palma and cuore di palma.
Nutrition
Cultivation
Harvesting and eating heart of palm is traditional in the cultures of Southeast Asia and South and Central America, pre-dating the colonial era. The species used depend on the region.In Southeast Asia, the dominant source of hearts of palm are coconuts. Other palms species used include rattans, fishtail palms, areca palm, Linospadix spp., Arenga spp., sago palms, and buri palms, among others.
In Central and South America, the dominant species used are juçara palms, açaí palms, and pejibaye palms. Other species used include sabal palmettos, grugru palms, royal palms, Astrocaryum spp., maripa palms, urucuri palms, cohune palms, hesper palms, and Syagrus spp., among others. In South America, Euterpe precatoria, Euterpe edulis, and Prestoea acuminata were formerly harvested commercially on a large scale, but currently not any longer due to overharvesting. A 2000 case study in the journal Biotropica proposed that Euterpe edulis could be sustainably grown and harvested. Today, commercially available palmito in South America is typically derived from wild Euterpe oleracea and cultivated Bactris gasipaes.
Cultivation has also spread to South Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world, utilizing native palms like Ravenea madagascariensis, Phoenix canariensis, Lodoicea maldivica, and Borassus aethiopum, among others. Based on a 1987 article, peach palms were previously shown to have stretched out from Bolivia to Honduras as well as the Amazon River into Central America, however recent studies into their conservation have estimated that their geographical distribution actually extends into the Caribbean and other continents.
There are palm varieties that have become domesticated farm species as an alternative to sourcing from wild palms. The main variety that has been domesticated is Bactris gasipaes, known in English as peach palm. This variety is the most widely used for canning. Peach palms are self-suckering and produce multiple stems, with up to 40 on one plant. This lets producers lower costs by harvesting several stems from a plant while avoiding the death of the palm. Another advantage is that the peach palm has been selectively bred to eliminate the thorns of its wild cousins. Since harvesting is still labor-intensive, palm hearts are regarded as a delicacy.
As of 2008, Costa Rica was the primary source of fresh palm hearts in the U.S. Peach palms are also cultivated in Hawaii, and now have limited distribution on the mainland, primarily to the restaurant trade. Florida's wild Sabal palmetto or cabbage palm was once a source of hearts of palm but is now protected by conservation law.