Michelle Loubon

T&T's hills are gold­en with poui. Man­go fra­grance bursts through the groves. Tamarinds hang like brown pen­dants. But when last did you munch on a mon­key ap­ple? When last did you crack open a pois doux and savour the soft white pulp? It's a rare mo­ment when a sug­ar ap­ple lands with a soft thud on a long blade of grass. Ed­u­ca­tion­al re­searcher Nass­er Khan not­ed youth and young chil­dren lack in­dige­nous knowl­edge about fruits like fat pork, garcinia, black sapote and Suri­nam cher­ry which their fore­fa­thers feast­ed up­on. As a re­sult he com­piled an A to Z chart-Fruits of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It boasts a cor­nu­copia in­clud­ing prim­rose, ton­ka beans and vulk. They are ac­com­pa­nied by botan­i­cal names.

Again, Khan set about to ed­u­cate and en­light­en on veg­eta­bles, root crops and herbs of T&T.

Re­cent­ly, the chart was hand­ed over to Nalis ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor An­nette Wal­lace at Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

Khan said it was one of the lit­er­a­cy ini­tia­tives since it was dis­trib­uted to schools and li­braries. He said: "I didn't re­alise the amount of work in­volved in pro­duc­ing these charts. But af­ter two-and-a-half years I am pleased the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion and Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion have en­dorsed it. "Every pre-school, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school was al­lot­ted an av­er­age of five copies." Khan al­so thanked Arnold Dyett, Cyn­thra Per­sad and Kel­lie Car­val­ho for bring­ing it to fruition. Since the pub­li­ca­tion of both Fruits and Roots, the charts were dis­trib­uted to all T&T mis­sions abroad, Col­lege of Agri­cul­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Saskatchewan, Cana­da, and lo­cal ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions. Apart from nu­tri­tion­al and med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es, fruit trees en­hance the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

It's a sight to be­hold glo­ri­ous cit­rus like or­anges, grape­fruits and tan­ger­ines. Clus­ters of red toma­toes ripened by the sun stand out in any kitchen gar­den. A patch of dasheen bush might have prompt­ed na­ture po­et William Wordsworth of Daf­fodils fame to write "10,000 saw I at a glance/Toss­ing their heads in spright­ly dance." Hog plums sup­port­ing big yel­low fruits flour­ish along­side the Tamana Riv­er. Swathes of red and yel­low co­coa pro­vide its own rus­tic charm in ar­eas like Lopinot. A lone sour cher­ry tree laden with fruit dwarfs mot­ley-coloured cro­tons in ar­eas like Tal­paro.

Roots crops chart

Huck­sters have been sell­ing sea­son­al topi tam­bu at $20. It found a place in the chart along with rare jhin­gi-a green veg­etable. Among the oth­er less­er known veg­eta­bles are jack bean, lau­ki, sai­jan, sat­putiya, seim, wing bean and poi bha­gi. Who could re­sist the fra­grance of the bay leaf, known to the Greeks as lau­rel? It flour­ish­es in rur­al ar­eas like Cu­mu­to; stand­ing like sen­tinels at the en­trances to homes. Bay leaves pro­duce teas. Chadon beni, a vi­tal sea­son­ing for chows made dur­ing a riv­er lime, is al­so men­tioned.

Lit­er­a­cy com­pe­ti­tion on fruits, roots

Nass­er Khan, a Guardian con­trib­u­tor, who pro­duced the Get Caught Read­ing Se­ries, said there were plans to en­sure the charts were used as learn­ing tools by stu­dents at all age lev­els and tal­ents. There are 84 fruits and 65 root crops are archived. Khan said: "Once the nec­es­sary ap­provals are giv­en, we will be rolling out a coun­try­wide com­pe­ti­tion cul­mi­nat­ing in a na­tion­al­ly tele­vised high­ly in­ter­ac­tive fi­nal based on the two charts." It would en­tail cross­words, word search­es, cre­ative writ­ing and draw­ing and re­search es­says cen­tred around top­ics such as the nu­tri­tion­al and med­i­c­i­nal val­ues of crops in­dige­nous to T&T.

• Peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in the charts can call 387-2731 or vis­it www.firstc­i­t­i­zen­stt.com/in­dex.html