Nass­er Khan

In this the 15th in­stal­ment of the con­tin­u­ing se­ries, Food for Thought/Grow & Eat Lo­cal, we fo­cus on chive and basil, two pop­u­lar food sea­son­ings used in T&T and which are easy to grow at home.

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.

Chives are grown through­out T&T, but those which are grown in the Paramin Val­ley, Mar­aval, are high­ly prized for their flavour. How­ev­er, the bun­dle of chive that we usu­al­ly buy is re­al­ly not the true chive but a close­ly re­lat­ed plant called scal­lion. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that what we call chive is re­al­ly the scal­lion that are very pop­u­lar in the Ja­maican cui­sine and is an in­gre­di­ent in the prepa­ra­tion of jerk sea­son­ing.

Chives are used in the mak­ing of the all-pur­pose green sea­son­ing which is used to sea­son meats. Both the green and white parts are used in stir fry and as a gar­nish to dish­es.

Chive and scal­lions be­long to the onion fam­i­ly of plants and pro­vide a mild onion flavour to cooked and raw foods. The true chive is known as Al­li­um schoeno­pra­sum, while our lo­cal chive is Al­li­um chi­nen­sis. Chives and scal­lions, like their rel­a­tive, the onion, pos­sess a re­duced or shrunk­en stem from which leaves emerge. The roots emerge just be­low the com­pressed stem re­gion and sit on the soil rather than be­ing sub­merged in the soil.

The true chive have very slim (small in di­am­e­ter) green leaves that are hol­low and tubu­lar, up to 50 cm (20 in) long and two�three mm (1?16 � 1?8 in) across, while that of the scal­lion are blue-green in colour and thick­er and broad­er. At the base of these leaves is the stem which is white in colour. Of in­ter­est is the gar­lic chive which can be eas­i­ly dis­tin­guished from the or­di­nary chive by its flat, thin, green leaves which has a dis­tinct gar­lic flavour/smell. Gar­lic chive plants pro­duce a very small white bulb that can be cooked like an onion.

For the pur­pose of easy read­ing, the scal­lions that are grown lo­cal­ly will be re­ferred to as chives. Chives are easy-to-grow plants and lend them­selves to grow­ing in con­tain­ers. Due to its grow­ing habit, a small con­tain­er can hold at least a dozen plants. Plants do best in full sun­shine but if this is not pos­si­ble, in­di­rect light will suf­fice. Read­i­ly avail­able from gar­den shops, chives be­gin as seed and sold as seedlings.

Melt­ing of young seedlings can oc­cur with too much wa­ter (rain), so it is rec­om­mend­ed to hold the chive seedlings un­til they have reached a thin pen­cil thick­ness be­fore plant­i­ng in­to con­tain­ers. Plant in well-drained soil and wa­ter as re­quired. As the plants grow, the base of the white stem swells and the leaves elon­gate. Out­er leaves can be cut to use in the kitchen, but the flavour of the chive is re­alised by us­ing the en­tire plant in­clud­ing the stems.

Basil–the king of herbs

Basil–Oci­mum basilicum, al­so called great basil or Saint Joseph's Wort, a half-hardy an­nu­al plant, is a culi­nary herb of the fam­i­ly Lami­aceae (mints). It is al­so called the "king of herbs" and the "roy­al herb." De­pend­ing on the species and cul­ti­var, the leaves may taste some­what like anise, with a strong, pun­gent, of­ten sweet smell.

There are many va­ri­eties of Oci­mum basilicum, as well as sev­er­al re­lat­ed species or­species hy­brids al­so called basil. While most com­mon va­ri­eties of basil are treat­ed as an­nu­als, some are peren­ni­al in warm, trop­i­cal cli­mates, in­clud­ing holy basil/tul­si and a cul­ti­var known as "African blue."

Most com­mer­cial­ly avail­able basils are cul­ti­vars of sweet basil. There are over 160 named cul­ti­vars avail­able, with new ones ap­pear­ing every year. Basil is most com­mon­ly used fresh in cooked recipes. In gen­er­al, it is added at the last mo­ment, as cook­ing quick­ly de­stroys the flavour.

Basil is very sen­si­tive to cold, with best growth in hot, dry con­di­tions. It fares best in a well-drained sun­ny spot. Al­though basil grows best out­doors in strong sun­light, it can be grown in­doors in a pot and like most herbs, will do best on a sun-fac­ing win­dowsill. If its leaves have wilt­ed from lack of wa­ter, it will re­cov­er if wa­tered thor­ough­ly and placed in a sun­ny lo­ca­tion. Yel­low leaves to­wards the bot­tom of the plant are an in­di­ca­tion that the plant has been stressed; usu­al­ly this means that it needs less wa­ter, or less or more fer­tilis­er.

Basil can be prop­a­gat­ed via its seed and seedlings are read­i­ly avail­able from gar­den shops. Once a stem pro­duces flow­ers, fo­liage pro­duc­tion stops on that stem, the stem be­comes woody, and es­sen­tial oil pro­duc­tion de­clines. To pre­vent this, a basil grow­er may pinch off any flower stems be­fore they are ful­ly ma­ture. Be­cause on­ly the bloom­ing stem is so af­fect­ed, some stems can be pinched for leaf pro­duc­tion, while oth­ers are left to bloom for dec­o­ra­tion or seeds.

Once the plant is al­lowed to flower, it may pro­duce seed pods con­tain­ing small black seeds, which can be saved and plant­ed the fol­low­ing year. Pick­ing the leaves off the plant helps pro­mote growth, large­ly be­cause the plant re­sponds by con­vert­ing pairs of leaflets next to the top­most leaves in­to new stems.

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, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion 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 UWI is chal­leng­ing its agri­science stu­dents to de­sign pro­to­types for grow­ing food while 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/

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