Nass­er Khan

Did you know that there are 149 crops (84 fruits, 35 veg­eta­bles, 12 root crops and 18 herbs) that are grown in Trinidad, not count­ing the va­ri­eties with­in many of them? Es­ti­mates have it that our food im­port bill is at $4 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly and grow­ing. Oil cen­tric­i­ty, in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and the non-agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness sec­tor have put paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. Our fer­tile soil, such as in the Mac­queripe Val­ley can once again be put to agri­cul­tur­al use to help re­duce our de­pen­dence on for­eign and of­ten processed foods.

In this in­stall­ment in the se­ries FOOD FOR THOUGHT, GROW & EAT LO­CAL, we fo­cus on sor­rel (sci­en­tif­ic name Hi­bis­cus Sab­dar­if­fa) and will fea­ture gin­ger (sci­en­tif­ic name Zin­giberof­fic­i­nale) in the next, the two pop­u­lar drinks as­so­ci­at­ed with T&T's Christ­mas sea­son.

A com­mon sight which her­alds the com­ing of Christ­mas is vans parked on the side of road­ways filled with the bright red sor­rel. Sor­rel–Hi­bis­cus sab­dar­if­fa be­longs to the hi­bis­cus fam­i­ly and is a short shrub that bears flow­ers quite like ochro and hi­bis­cus. Once the flower falls off, the ca­lyx at the base of the flower swells and thick­ens and grows to cov­er the seed cap­sule. This cov­er is what we know as sor­rel and is used in the de­li­cious drink of the same name.

While there is no def­i­nite con­clu­sion, some ex­perts have iden­ti­fied the re­gion from In­dia to Malaysia as the ori­gin of the plant (main­ly due to the wide va­ri­ety of species which oc­cur there, in­clud­ing one that is used for fi­bre) while oth­ers claim it is from West Africa where it is used as a tea and for med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es. What is for sure though, is that seeds of sor­rel moved from West Africa to the Amer­i­c­as via the slave trade.

Where once the bright red va­ri­ety sor­rel was on­ly avail­able dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, in­tro­duc­tion of new va­ri­eties which are day­light in­sen­si­tive, makes pro­duc­tion pos­si­ble year-round. Al­so, there is a pop­u­lar va­ri­ety that is now in cul­ti­va­tion with deep ma­roon to black ca­lyces with a stronger sor­rel flavour. There is al­so a va­ri­ety of sor­rel with white ca­lyces.

Sor­rel is tra­di­tion­al­ly used for mak­ing a pop­u­lar Christ­mas-time drink where the fresh ca­lyces are re­moved from the seed, washed and ei­ther boiled or left to steep overnight (the ad­di­tion of spices such as­cin­na­mon, cloves and gin­ger can be added to en­hance the flavour). It can be used ei­ther in its fresh state or dried. The re­sult­ing ma­roon liq­uid is then strained and sweet­ened.

Sor­rel is in­her­ent­ly tart which makes them the per­fect medi­um for oth­er food items like jam, jel­ly, syrup, gelatin, dessert, pud­ding, cake, ice cream and flavour­ing. Sor­rel can be used for the mak­ing of tea and is al­so used in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and food in­dus­tries.

In­fu­sions of the leaves or ca­lyces are re­gard­ed as di­uret­ic and hy­poten­sive. They have al­so been found to have an­ti­spas­mod­ic, an­thelmintic and an­tibac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties and are used as a cool­ing herb which in­creas­es the flow of blood to the skin, di­lat­ing the pores for the cool­ing ef­fect. The leaves can by cooked like spinach and the seeds dried and eat­en. The seeds can al­so be roast­ed and ground in­to a pow­der and used in soups and sauces.

The sor­rel plant grows to a height of 1.5 to three me­tres with many branch­es and flow­ers and bears an­nu­al­ly. The tree should be plant­ed around Ju­ly/Au­gust. With va­ri­eties that can be cul­ti­vat­ed year-round, pro­duc­tion is now not lim­it­ed. Re­search has been con­duct­ed on sor­rel at UWI and CAR­DI in the '80s and '90s fo­cus­ing on its use as a nat­ur­al food colour­ing agent and ex­trac­tion of its high pectin con­tent.

Re­search has al­so been car­ried out on pests and dis­eases of sor­rel which can be a lim­it­ing fac­tor to suc­cess­ful pro­duc­tion. When the Hi­bis­cus Mealy bug was rav­aging plants across the is­land in the late '90s, sor­rel was ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed and pro­duc­tion fell dras­ti­cal­ly un­til bi­o­log­i­cal con­trol was es­tab­lished.

Last year sor­rel was be­ing sold dur­ing the high sea­son at an av­er­age of $5-7 per lb. In De­cem­ber 2013, The Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion un­veiled the first ever seed stamp pro­duced in the Caribbean re­gion. The stamp was in­spired by the World Food Day's 2013 theme Sus­tain­able Food Sys­tems for Food Se­cu­ri­ty and Nu­tri­tion and was se­lect­ed as the fea­ture for the stamp as all parts of the sor­rel are ed­i­ble.

This se­ries is writ­ten by Nass­er Khan 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

SOR­REL DRINK

In­gre­di­ents

1.5 lb fresh sor­rel flow­ers

8 cups wa­ter

1 cin­na­mon stick

2 pieces of dried or­ange peel

4 cloves

thick slice of gin­ger

sug­ar

Method

�2 Re­move the core from the sor­rel flow­ers and dis­card

�2 Place all in­gre­di­ents in a large pot, cov­er with wa­ter and bring to a boil.

�2 Re­duce to a gen­tle sim­mer for about 30 min­utes.

�2 Re­move from heat, cov­er and let it steep for a few hours, even overnight.

�2 Dou­ble strain with a very fine strain­er or cheese cloth.

�2 Chill and sweet­en to your lik­ing. For a stronger drink, in­crease the amount of sor­rel petals you use. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the amount of sor­rel petals and the brew can be used as a con­cen­trate. Sim­ply bot­tle and store in the fridge. Use as need­ed (add a small amount to wa­ter, sweet­en).

NU­TRI­TION­AL CON­TENT:

De­scrip­tion Cal­ci­um (mg) Iron(mg) Potas­si­um(mg) Sodi­um (mg) Zinc (mg) Vit.A Thi­amin(mg) Ri­boflavin(mg) Niacin(mg) Vit C

(Per 100 mg)

Sor­rel–Raw 110 2.2 5 0.04 0.06 4 18

–Dried 659 9 0.12 0.28 3.8 7