Nass­er Khan

Here in T&T we tend to grav­i­tate to­wards im­port­ed fruits and foods but the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's re­cent an­nounce­ment to in­clude more lo­cal con­tent in the School Nu­tri­tion/Feed­ing Pro­gramme is in­deed a wel­come ini­tia­tive that on­ly au­gur well for the na­tion's health and the agri­cul­ture sec­tor.

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) all de­pict­ed on two charts with a pho­to of each crop in al­pha or­der giv­ing the lo­cal and sci­en­tif­ic names. These charts were spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens. The mod­el has been du­pli­cat­ed in Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and copies have been dis­trib­uted to all schools and li­braries. For in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing their avail­abil­i­ty, email fruit­stt@live.com

In this the 24th in­stal­ment of the con­tin­u­ing se­ries, we fea­ture ochro–Abel­moschus es­cu­len­tus, al­so known in many Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries as ladies' fin­gers, okra or gum­bo. It is a flow­er­ing plant in the hi­bis­cus fam­i­ly and is val­ued for its ed­i­ble green seed pods and is cul­ti­vat­ed in trop­i­cal, sub­trop­i­cal and warm tem­per­ate re­gions around the world. The name okra is most of­ten used in the UK, Unit­ed States and the Philip­pines, with a vari­ant pro­nun­ci­a­tion in Caribbean Eng­lish and Nige­ria of okro. The word okra is from the Ig­bo ??k??r??.

Ochro is a peren­ni­al plant but it is of­ten cul­ti­vat­ed as an an­nu­al and grows to around two me­tres tall. The flow­ers are 4�8 cm in di­am­e­ter, with five white to yel­low petals, of­ten with a red or pur­ple spot at the base of each petal and close­ly re­sem­bles the or­na­men­tal hi­bis­cus flow­ers. The fruit is up to 18 cm long with pen­tag­o­nal cross-sec­tion, con­tain­ing nu­mer­ous seeds.

Ochro is cul­ti­vat­ed as a veg­etable for its fi­brous fruits or pods con­tain­ing round, white seeds. It is among the most heat- and drought-tol­er­ant veg­etable species in the world and will tol­er­ate soils with heavy clay and in­ter­mit­tent mois­ture.

In cul­ti­va­tion, the seeds are soaked overnight pri­or to plant­i­ng to a depth of 1�2 cm. Seedlings re­quire am­ple wa­ter. The seed pods rapid­ly be­come fi­brous and woody and, to be ed­i­ble, must be har­vest­ed with­in a week of the fruit hav­ing been pol­li­nat­ed. The fruits are har­vest­ed when im­ma­ture and eat­en as a veg­etable. Ochro is avail­able in two va­ri­eties, green and red. Red ochro car­ries the same flavour as the more pop­u­lar green va­ri­ety and dif­fers on­ly in colour. When cooked, the red ochro pods turn green.

The ge­o­graph­i­cal ori­gin of ochro is dis­put­ed with sup­port­ers of South Asian, Ethiopi­an and West African ori­gins. Sup­port­ers of a South Asian ori­gin point to the pres­ence of its pro­posed par­ents in that re­gion, while sup­port­ers of a West African ori­gin point to the greater di­ver­si­ty of ochro in that re­gion.

The Egyp­tians and Moors of the 12th and 13th cen­turies used the Ara­bic word for the plant, bamya, sug­gest­ing it had come in­to Egypt from Ara­bia, but ear­li­er it was prob­a­bly tak­en from Ethiopia to Ara­bia. One of the ear­li­est ac­counts is by a Span­ish Moor who vis­it­ed Egypt in 1216 and de­scribed the plant un­der cul­ti­va­tion by the lo­cals who ate the ten­der, young pods with meals. From Ara­bia, the plant spread around the shores of the Mediter­ranean Sea and east­ward.

The plant was in­tro­duced in­to the Amer­i­c­as by ships ply­ing the At­lantic slave trade by 1658, when its pres­ence was record­ed in Brazil. It was fur­ther doc­u­ment­ed in Suri­name in 1686. Ochro may have been in­tro­duced to south­east­ern North Amer­i­ca from Africa in the ear­ly 18th cen­tu­ry. By 1748, it was be­ing grown as far north as Philadel­phia. Thomas Jef­fer­son not­ed it was well es­tab­lished in Vir­ginia by 1781. It was com­mon­place through­out the south­ern Unit­ed States by 1800, and the first men­tion of dif­fer­ent cul­ti­vars was in 1806.

This is one veg­etable that is very easy to grow in your back­yard. For a com­pre­hen­sive guide to grow­ing ochroes, vis­it the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture's web­site.

Ochro is a "save seed" crop. That is, seeds from an ex­ist­ing crop can be har­vest­ed and saved for grow­ing in the fu­ture. The pop­u­lar six-week ochro is such a va­ri­ety. While this va­ri­ety may not be as pro­duc­tive as the im­port­ed va­ri­eties, it is nev­er­the­less im­por­tant for sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our agro- bio­di­ver­si­ty. In To­ba­go, an­oth­er pop­u­lar "save seed" va­ri­ety is the red ochro which is a ro­bust plant with large red-tinged pods.

A pop­u­lar va­ri­ety grown here is the Clem­son Spine­less which was de­vel­oped at Clem­son Uni­ver­si­ty, South Car­oli­na in the Unit­ed States. This is a heir­loom va­ri­ety–seeds can be saved for fu­ture plant­i­ngs–that was de­vel­oped as an im­prove­ment to min­imise the pres­ence of rough hairs on the pods which ne­ces­si­tat­ed the wear­ing of gloves when har­vest­ing. To­day, most va­ri­eties that are cul­ti­vat­ed are spine­less.

Since ochro pods grow at a rapid rate, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the rainy sea­son, har­vest­ing should be done every oth­er day to min­imise the hard­en­ing and thick­en­ing of the pods.

The en­tire ochro plant, leaves in­clud­ed, and fruits are mu­cilagi­nous (hav­ing thick, gluey sub­stance). This re­sults in the char­ac­ter­is­tic goo or slime when the seed pods are cooked. The mu­cilage con­tains sol­u­ble fi­bre and pro­teins. The vis­cos­i­ty of the mu­cilage in­creas­es when heat is ap­plied, which makes it good for thick­en­ing dish­es but bad if you're try­ing to saut� sliced okra.

There are var­i­ous ways to min­imise the slime when cook­ing ochroes, such as keep­ing the pods in­tact, since slic­ing re­leas­es the slime, cook­ing on a hot flame in an un­cov­ered pot and cook­ing with acidic in­gre­di­ents such as a few drops of lemon juice, toma­toes or vine­gar.

Ochro is a pop­u­lar health food due to its high fi­bre con­tent, vi­t­a­min C, and fo­late (Vi­t­a­min B) con­tent. It is al­so high in an­tiox­i­dants and is a good source of cal­ci­um and potas­si­um with many health ben­e­fits ac­cru­ing from its on­go­ing use.

Ochro gives the Sun­day callaloo its char­ac­ter­is­tic silk­i­ness and smooth tex­ture. When ochroes are in sea­son and cheap, fried ochro with salt fish and sa­da roti is a must. Ochroes can be pick­led, steamed, stewed, stir fried, deep-fried and grilled. Add it to any good soup such as san­coche or gum­bo for more body and de­li­cious crunch. An­oth­er best prac­tice when prepar­ing ochro is to make use of a deep-fry­er.

Since heat fur­ther ac­ti­vates the thick­en­ing of mu­cilage, bat­ter and quick-fry chopped pods to a gold­en brown fo­ra crunchy and slime-free–well, al­most slime-free–ap­pe­tiz­er or snack. Gum­bo, a name syn­ony­mous with ochro, is a stew that orig­i­nat­ed in south­ern Louisiana dur­ing the 18th cen­tu­ry and in­clud­ed ochroes as one of the thick­en­ing agents.

Es­ti­mates are that T&T's an­nu­al food im­port bill is near TT$5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly, cov­er­ing 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 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. How­ev­er, there are grave con­cerns over the mis­use of pes­ti­cides in T&T. A sub­se­quent in­stal­ment in this se­ries will ex­am­ine this mat­ter.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion 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.

Fried Ochro

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

12 ochroes

1/2 onion

2 cloves gar­lic

2 tb­sp oil, salt (and pep­per if de­sired) to taste

METHOD

�2 Chop ochroes, onion, and gar­lic.

�2 Saut� onion and gar­lic un­til gold­en brown.

�2 Add ochro; salt and pep­per to taste. Fry the ochro un­til it has a gold­en colour. The ochro will lose its mu­cilage (slime) when prop­er­ly cooked. Great with sa­da roti. En­joy!