First off, it’s pronounced “oo-bay”. Second, it’s a kind of yam. Third, it’s blowing up in Instagram foodie culture, as much for its velveteen purple tones as its taste – reckoned to be somewhere between pistachio, white chocolate, vanilla and coconut.
Post-cronut, in the never-ending decadence war of online eating, the Wonka-ish ube is having a moment. Like the cronut, it has relied on the innovation of one chef, the intriguingly named Björn DelaCruz of hip Filipino restaurant Manila Social Club in Brooklyn, New York. DelaCruz decided to make ube donuts for his employees one day, as a snack.
Then, when New Year’s Eve rolled round, his celebratory 24-carat gold-glazed, Cristal-and-ube mousse-flavoured doughnut caught fire on Instagram, and a colourant superstar was born.
DelaCruz still sells the gold ones at $1,000 (£770) a dozen. But for those without as much aspiration, he has taken regular ube doughnuts to the market at the perfectly reasonable rate of $40 a dozen, using frozen, grated ube – the fresh stuff was so obscure even New York couldn’t regularly supply it.
And, like the cronut before him, he has done so in limited batches only, producing 40 dozen every Friday. The result of this supply constriction was 200 foodies queueing in bleak Williamsburg mid-winter to grab their quota and take the obligatory photo.
Since then, other restaurants and bloggers have turned the lurid tuber into a range of looks: velvet cheesecake, indigo ice-cream, magenta macaroons, purple pancakes, lascivious lava cakes and Filipino favourite Pinoy waffles.
With its salty-sour stews and reliance on fats and peanut butter, Filipino food has so far achieved little of the western crossover of Thai or Vietnamese food, so ube’s 140,000 search results on Instagram is rare breakout moment.
Filipinos mainly know ube as halayang ube – “purple yam jam” – made by peeling the root, boiling it and mashing it, a laborious process that means it is most often reserved for special occasions such as new years and birthdays. For now, though, its crossover appeal is reason enough to pump up the jams.
