Tiger Nut

The tiger nut, also called chufa or earth almond, is the edible tuber of Cyperus esculentus, a sedge rather than a true nut, small and spherical, between 0.3 and 2.5 centimeters across and colored yellow, brown or black; a single plant can produce several hundred to several thousand tubers in one growing season. It grows widely across the Eastern Hemisphere, including southern Europe, Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, and has an ancient history of use, with wild chufa roots found at Wadi Kubbaniya near Aswan dated to about 16,000 BC; ancient Egyptians ate the tubers boiled in beer, roasted, or sweetened with honey, and used them in religious offerings. With a slightly sweet, nutty flavor, tiger nuts are eaten raw or cooked, most notably ground into horchata de chufa, a traditional Spanish beverage, and are also roasted as a coffee substitute or ground into flour.