Nass­er Khan

In this the 21st in­stal­ment of the con­tin­u­ing se­ries, Food for Thought/ Grow & Eat Lo­cal, we fo­cus on turmer­ic, Cur­cuma lon­ga, a herba­ceous peren­ni­al plant be­long­ing to the gin­ger fam­i­ly, Zin­gib­er­aceae.

Here in Trinidad, turmer­ic is re­ferred to as har­di which is a dis­tor­tion of the word hal­di, de­rived from the San­skrit haridra. It is al­so er­ro­neous­ly la­belled and sold as saf­fron which is a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent spice ob­tained from the sta­mens of the cro­cus flower. Like saf­fron, turmer­ic al­so yields a bright yel­low colour to food, hence it be­ing lo­cal­ly re­ferred to as saf­fron.

Food for Thought/Grow and Eat Lo­cal seeks to in­form about the 149 crops that are grown in T&T (not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them). These crops are de­pict­ed on two charts with a pho­to of each crop in al­pha or­der giv­ing the lo­cal and sci­en­tif­ic names and were spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens. The mod­el has been du­pli­cat­ed in Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent, and ef­forts are un­der­way to do so in Ja­maica and Guyana. Copies have been dis­trib­uted to all schools and li­braries. For in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing their avail­abil­i­ty: email fruit­stt@live.com

Here in T&T, we tend to grav­i­tate to­wards fruits and foods that are not lo­cal. Es­ti­mates are that our food im­port bill is near TT$5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly, about 85 per cent of our food in­take, most of it processed and high in ar­ti­fi­cial ad­di­tives and sug­ar and salt.

Did you know that in the 1960s the Mac­queripe/Tuck­er Val­ley was once lush with cit­rus and ba­nana fields pro­duc­ing more than enough to sup­ply the na­tion? In oth­er fer­tile ar­eas of the coun­try oth­er crops were pro­lif­ic. Oil cen­tric­i­ty, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and non-agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness have es­sen­tial­ly put paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

It is crit­i­cal that we as a na­tion en­gage and sup­port the res­ur­rec­tion and re­vival of lo­cal food pro­duc­tion (eg in schools) and con­sump­tion. As a coun­try, we must place greater em­pha­sis on food sov­er­eign­ty as a mat­ter of ur­gent at­ten­tion.

Turmer­ic is wide­ly cul­ti­vat­ed through­out the trop­ics. It has been used in Asia for thou­sands of years and is a ma­jor part of Sid­dha med­i­cine. It was first used as a dye, and then lat­er for its med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties and for cos­met­ic pur­pos­es.

In the 13th cen­tu­ry, Mar­co Po­lo wrote of this spice, mar­vel­ling at a veg­etable that ex­hib­it­ed qual­i­ties so sim­i­lar to saf­fron. Turmer­ic is con­sid­ered holy and has been used in var­i­ous Hin­du cer­e­monies for cen­turies where it re­mains pop­u­lar in In­dia for wed­ding and re­li­gious cer­e­monies. Like in In­dia, these tra­di­tions have tak­en 'root' in T&T and turmer­ic is al­so used in Hin­du re­li­gious cer­e­monies in­clud­ing wed­ding cer­e­monies.

Like gin­ger, turmer­ic plants are har­vest­ed for their rhi­zomes (un­der­ground stems). When not used fresh, the rhi­zomes are boiled for about 30�45 min­utes and then dried in hot ovens, af­ter which they are ground in­to a deep-or­ange-yel­low pow­der com­mon­ly used as a spice in Asian cuisines and as a main com­po­nent of cur­ries. It is al­so used for dye­ing and to im­part colour to cer­tain food prepa­ra­tions.

One ac­tive in­gre­di­ent found in turmer­ic is cur­cum­in, which has a dis­tinct­ly earthy, slight­ly bit­ter, slight­ly hot pep­pery flavour and a mus­tardy smell. Turmer­ic rhi­zomes are used as a bright yel­low-or­ange culi­nary spice. The rhi­zomes can be cured for use as a spice by boil­ing and steam­ing. They can al­so be boiled in wa­ter, dried, peeled and then ground.

Turmer­ic is an im­por­tant yel­low food dye and is added to many In­di­an dish­es in­clud­ing cur­ries. Turmer­ic is a main in­gre­di­ent of cur­ry pow­der and ground rhi­zomes are used to make turmer­ic oil that is used in the in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of flavour­ing for cur­ries.

In Grena­da, the tra­di­tion­al "oil down" (made with bread­fruit) has a yel­low fin­ished colour ob­tained from the use of turmer­ic. Pow­dered turmer­ic is al­so avail­able from Grena­da.

It is a very easy plant to grow at home, one clump is suf­fi­cient to pro­vide the home with fresh hal­di. It is an up­right peren­ni­al herba­ceous plant that reach­es up to one me­tre tall and pro­duces high­ly branched, yel­low to or­ange, cylin­dri­cal, aro­mat­ic rhi­zomes. Turmer­ic on­ly re­pro­duces via its rhi­zomes. Turmer­ic is ready for har­vest­ing sev­en to ten months af­ter plant­i­ng, when the low­er leaves turn yel­low.

Har­vest­ing is car­ried out by dig­ging up the rhi­zomes. Leafy tops are then cut off and the roots and ad­her­ing earth are re­moved. Rhi­zomes are then washed. Turmer­ic re­quires tem­per­a­tures be­tween 20 and 30 �C (68 and 86 �F) and a con­sid­er­able amount of an­nu­al rain­fall to thrive.

An­oth­er in­di­ca­tor of when the rhi­zome is ready for har­vest is the ap­pear­ance of these rhi­zomes above the soil lev­el. Once these rhi­zomes are har­vest­ed some are re­tained for re­plant­i­ng as a fu­ture crop. It is rec­om­mend­ed that rhi­zomes be air dried be­fore plant­i­ng. If plant­i­ng in the ground, dig deep and aer­at­ed soil well, add ma­nure and pre­pare a mound.

Plant un­bruised rhi­zomes about 15-30 cm apart and at least five cm be­low soil lev­el. If plant­i­ng in a large pot, use well drained soil. Un­like its cousin gin­ger, turmer­ic prefers to be grown in full sun­shine and must be well wa­tered.

In Ayurvedic prac­tices, turmer­ic has been used to treat a va­ri­ety of in­ter­nal dis­or­ders, such as in­di­ges­tion, throat in­fec­tions, com­mon colds, or liv­er ail­ments, as well as top­i­cal­ly to cleanse wounds or treat skin sores. Ba­sic re­search shows ex­tracts from turmer­ic may have an­ti­fun­gal and an­tibac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties.

Turmer­ic is un­der study for its po­ten­tial to af­fect hu­man dis­eases, in­clud­ing kid­ney and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases, arthri­tis, can­cer, ir­ri­ta­ble bow­el dis­ease, Alzheimer's dis­ease, di­a­betes, and oth­er clin­i­cal dis­or­ders.

Ex­ter­nal­ly, the dried rhi­zome has been ap­plied to fresh wounds and in­sect stings and to help the heal­ing process in chick­en­pox and small­pox. In­hala­tion of turmer­ic smoke is re­put­ed to re­lieve hic­cups. Turmer­ic rhi­zomes have al­so been mixed with oth­er plants to pro­duce tra­di­tion­al reme­dies for a range of con­di­tions in­clud­ing ton­sil­li­tis, headaches, wounds, snake bites, stings, sprains and frac­tured bones.

Turmer­ic is not wide­ly used in West­ern med­i­cine, but has been in­ves­ti­gat­ed as a treat­ment for some con­di­tions. Stud­ies show that the rhi­zomes con­tain com­pounds that may have ther­a­peu­tic ef­fects, which ap­pear to sup­port some of its us­es in tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine. Here in Trinidad, turmer­ic tea (made from fresh grat­ed turmer­ic rhi­zomes) is drunk to as­sist with the heal­ing of in­ter­nal wounds while a paste can be ap­plied to the skin for the heal­ing of ex­ter­nal wounds.

Com­mer­cial cos­met­ics con­tain­ing turmer­ic are now wide­ly avail­able in Trinidad from face wash­es to tooth­paste.Turmer­ic pa­per, al­so called cur­cuma pa­per or in Ger­man lit­er­a­ture Cur­cum­a­pa­pi­er is pa­per steeped in a tinc­ture of turmer­ic and al­lowed to dry. It is used in chem­i­cal analy­sis as an in­di­ca­tor for acid­i­ty and al­ka­lin­i­ty.

In­dia is the world's largest pro­duc­er, con­sumer and ex­porter of turmer­ic.

Vis­it the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries' web­site at

http://www.agri­cul­ture.gov.tt/

This se­ries is writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cyn­thra Per­sad, re­tired di­rec­tor of Re­search, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture. For in­for­ma­tion on ac­quir­ing copies of the 2 Crops of T&T charts, email fruit­stt@live.com.