I haven't read the book, but reading this excerpt now, and given my Indian context of vegetables, this initially comes across as masochism. What we call "yam" i

I haven't read the book, but reading this excerpt now, and given my Indian context of vegetables, this initially comes across as masochism. What we call "yam" in India has the full name "elephant foot yam", and is full of calcium oxalate crystals that will seriously hurt the mouth. We boil the vegetable quite aggressively to destroy the crystals.