Nass­er Khan

In this the 13th in­stal­ment of Food for Thought/Grow & Eat Lo­cal, we fo­cus on pump­kin (Cu­cur­bi­ta moscha­ta) and wa­ter­mel­on (Cit­rul­lus lana­tus), both be­long­ing to the Cu­cur­bitaceae (gourd) fam­i­ly known as cu­cur­bits.

Five species are com­mon­ly grown world­wide for their ed­i­ble fruit, var­i­ous­ly known as squash, pump­kin or gourd de­pend­ing on species, va­ri­ety and lo­cal par­lance, and for their seeds. Zuc­chi­ni be­longs to the squash group but bears its fruits on a non-vin­ing plant. Oth­er kinds of gourd, al­so called bot­tle-gourds, are na­tive to Africa and in­clude the gen­era La­ge­nar­ia and Cit­rul­lus (wa­ter­mel­on) which is in the same fam­i­ly and sub­fam­i­ly as Cu­cur­bi­ta but in a dif­fer­ent tribe.

These oth­er gourds are used as uten­sils or ves­sels and their young fruits are eat­en much like those of Cu­cur­bi­ta species. Both pump­kin and wa­ter­mel­on vines can pro­duce per­haps the largest fruits. Oth­er im­por­tant and di­verse food plants in the Cu­cur­bitaceae fam­i­ly in­clude these which have their ori­gin in Asia: Cu­cumis sativus–cu­cum­ber, Luffa spp–jhin­gi, Tri­chosan­thes cu­c­ume­ria–snake gourd and Mo­mordi­ca cha­ran­tia–caraillee.

This se­ries seeks to in­form about the 149 crops that are grown in T&T (not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them). These 149 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. In­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing their avail­abil­i­ty: email fruit­stt@live.com

Pump­kins are wide­ly grown for com­mer­cial use and are used both in food and recre­ation (hal­loween). Gi­ant pump­kins are a large squash (with­in the group of com­mon squash Cu­cur­bi­ta max­i­ma) that can ex­ceed one ton (2,000 pounds) in weight. First cul­ti­vat­ed in the Amer­i­c­as be­fore be­ing brought to Eu­rope by re­turn­ing ex­plor­ers af­ter their dis­cov­ery of the New World, plants in the genus Cu­cur­bi­ta are im­por­tant sources of hu­man food and oil.

Pump­kins are very ver­sa­tile in their us­es for cook­ing. Most parts of the pump­kin are ed­i­ble, in­clud­ing the fleshy or­ange shell, the seeds, the leaves, and even the flow­ers. Here in T&T, young stems with leaves and pump­kin flow­ers are picked and cooked as bha­gi. It is an im­por­tant in­gre­di­ent in Caribbean cook­ing–ei­ther cooked alone as a veg­etable or added to stews, callaloo, soups and steamed in sal­ads.

Raw pump­kin is al­so used for prepar­ing pump­kin punch. In Trinidad, pump­kin is cul­ti­vat­ed through­out the year and is one of the ma­jor ex­port crops. It is al­so an im­por­tant food cooked for Hin­du wed­dings and re­li­gious fes­ti­vals.

There are nu­mer­ous va­ri­eties of pump­kin cul­ti­vat­ed in T&T, but what the shop­per looks for is a pump­kin that cooks "dry" and does not have lots of wa­ter. Va­ri­eties that cook dry have a deep­er flavour. The lo­cal va­ri­ety known as "cra­paud back," be­cause of the rough and bumpy skin, is prized since it cooks dry. Among oth­er us­es, ex­tracts are used in cos­met­ics for dry and sen­si­tive skin.

The many culi­nary us­es in­clude talka­ri/cho­ka, pump­kin pie, bis­cuits, bread, desserts, pud­dings, bev­er­ages, and soups. Pump­kins and oth­er Cu­cur­bi­ta fruits are cel­e­brat­ed in fes­ti­vals and in flower and veg­etable shows in many coun­tries. Pump­kin is a good source of vi­t­a­min E (Al­pha To­co­pherol), thi­amin, niacin, vi­t­a­min B6, fo­late, iron, mag­ne­sium and phos­pho­rus.

It is al­so a good source of di­etary fi­bre, vi­t­a­mins A and C. Like oth­er or­ange-coloured food, pump­kin con­tains the an­tiox­i­dant, be­ta-carotene. Pump­kin seeds are a pop­u­lar snack that can be found hulled or se­mi-hulled at most gro­cery stores.

Per-ounce serv­ing, pump­kin seeds are a good source of pro­tein, mag­ne­sium, cop­per and zinc. Pump­kin seed oil is a thick, green-red oil that is pro­duced from roast­ed pump­kin seeds. When used for cook­ing or as a sal­ad dress­ing, pump­kin seed oil is gen­er­al­ly mixed with oth­er oils be­cause of its ro­bust flavour and is used in cook­ing in cen­tral and east­ern Eu­rope.

It is con­sid­ered a del­i­ca­cy in tra­di­tion­al lo­cal cuisines such as for pump­kin soup, pota­to sal­ad or even vanil­la ice cream. Pump­kin seed oil con­tains fat­ty acids, such as ole­ic acid and al­pha-linolenic acid.

Wa­ter­mel­on is a vine-like (scram­bler and trail­er) flow­er­ing plant orig­i­nal­ly from south­ern Africa. It is grown for its ed­i­ble fruit which is main­ly eat­en cold and fresh. There are more than 1,200 cul­ti­vars of wa­ter­mel­on which range in weight from less than one kg to more than 90 kilo­grams (200 lbs). Small va­ri­eties called ice-box va­ri­eties can eas­i­ly fit in the re­frig­er­a­tor. Wa­ter­mel­on flesh can be red, or­ange, yel­low or white.

Con­sid­er­able breed­ing ef­fort has been put in­to the de­vel­op­ment of dis­ease-re­sis­tant va­ri­eties and in­to de­vel­op­ing a seed­less strain. Many cul­ti­vars are avail­able, pro­duc­ing ma­ture fruit with­in 100 days of plant­i­ng the crop. Ev­i­dence of wa­ter­mel­on cul­ti­va­tion in the Nile Val­ley has been found from the sec­ond mil­len­ni­um BC on­ward.

In the 7th cen­tu­ry, wa­ter­mel­ons were be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed in In­dia and by the 10th cen­tu­ry had reached Chi­na, which is to­day the world's sin­gle largest wa­ter­mel­on pro­duc­er. Moor­ish in­vaders in­tro­duced the fruit in­to Eu­rope and there is ev­i­dence of it be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed in C�rdo­ba in 961 and al­so in Seville in 1158. It spread north­wards through south­ern Eu­rope, per­haps lim­it­ed in its ad­vance by sum­mer tem­per­a­tures be­ing in­suf­fi­cient for good yields.

The fruit had be­gun ap­pear­ing in Eu­ro­pean herbals by 1600, and was wide­ly plant­ed in Eu­rope in the 17th cen­tu­ry as a mi­nor gar­den crop. Eu­ro­pean colonists and slaves from Africa in­tro­duced the wa­ter­mel­on in­to the New World. Span­ish set­tlers were record­ed as grow­ing it in Flori­da in 1576, and it was be­ing grown in Mass­a­chu­setts by 1629.

By 1650, it was be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed in Pe­ru, Brazil and Pana­ma as well as in many British and Dutch colonies. Around the same time, Na­tive Amer­i­cans were cul­ti­vat­ing the crop in the Mis­sis­sip­pi val­ley and Flori­da. Wa­ter­mel­ons were rapid­ly ac­cept­ed in Hawaii and oth­er Pa­cif­ic is­lands when they were in­tro­duced there by ex­plor­ers such as Cap­tain James Cook.

A 100-gram serv­ing of wa­ter­mel­on fruit sup­plies 30 calo­ries (main­ly from fruc­tose) and low amounts of es­sen­tial nu­tri­ents and lit­tle fi­bre. On­ly vi­t­a­min C is present in ap­pre­cia­ble con­tent at ten per cent of the dai­ly val­ue. Wa­ter­mel­on fruit is 91 per cent wa­ter, con­tains six per cent sug­ars, and is low in fat. Wa­ter­mel­on pulp con­tains carotenoids, in­clud­ing ly­copene.

Wa­ter­mel­on rinds are al­so ed­i­ble but most peo­ple avoid eat­ing them due to their un­ap­peal­ing flavour. They are used for mak­ing pick­les and some­times used as a veg­etable. The amino acid cit­rulline is pro­duced in wa­ter­mel­on rind.

Trinidad has a long his­to­ry of wa­ter­mel­on cul­ti­va­tion es­pe­cial­ly in the la­goon fields af­ter har­vest­ing of rice. Orig­i­nal­ly wa­ter­mel­on was cul­ti­vat­ed in Pe­nal, Plum Mi­tan, Ker­na­han but to­day, it can be found cul­ti­vat­ed across the coun­try main­ly in the dry sea­son.

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 and grow­ing. A com­mit­tee has been ap­point­ed by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries to mon­i­tor the foods be­ing im­port­ed in T&T with the aim to re­duce the high food im­port bill and en­cour­age lo­cal farm­ers to pro­duce more.

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

To­day, there must be in­no­va­tion in agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion to as­sist lo­cal farm­ers if we are to re­duce our huge food im­port bill. Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced its in­ten­tion to es­tab­lish a 130-acre agro park in Waller­field and that the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture's al­lo­ca­tion of $831 mil­lion in the 2016 bud­get "had not yet been touched."

UWI is chal­leng­ing its agri-sci­ence stu­dents to de­sign pro­to­types for grow­ing food and agri­cul­tur­al econ­o­mist Omar­dath Ma­haraj is call­ing on cit­i­zens to en­gage and sup­port the res­ur­rec­tion and re­vival of lo­cal food pro­duc­tion, pro­cess­ing and con­sump­tion. Ac­cord­ing to him "we must, as a coun­try, be­gin to fo­cus on food sov­er­eign­ty as a crit­i­cal and sus­tain­able step on the path ahead. We must re­turn to this old time re­li­gion."

Vis­it the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries' web­site at http://www.agri­cul­ture.gov.tt/

Nu­tri­ent Con­tent of Wa­ter­mel­on and Pump­kin (Val­ues per 100g)

Food Cal­ci­um (mg) Iron (mg) Potas­si­um (mg) Sodi­um (mg) Zinc (mg) Vit.A Thi­amin (mg) Ri­boflavin (mg) Niacin (mg) To­tal Fo­lacin (mg) Cyano Cobal­amin mg

Wa­ter­mel­on 8 0.2 116 2 0.1 37 0.08 0.02 0.2 2.2 0 10

Pump­kin - Raw 21 0.8 340 1 0.2 160 0.05 0.11 0.6 10 0 9

Cooked, drained 15 0.6 230 1 0.2 108 0.03 0.08 0.4 10 0