As luck would have it, my word processor apparently crashed on me and wiped out my "What's for Dinner" diary which I had begun writing last week. I had just downloaded a new version of Open Office and some error apparently caused the text to be lost when I tried to save it. Strangely, a 17 KB 'document' remains in my folder, but when I open it, no text appears at all. I'm wondering if the text is hidden or might somehow be retrieved. I guess I should just count myself lucky that it happened with a Daily Kos diary and not the notes for one of my evening university lectures.
I had written something about medicinal herbs and nontraditional tropical fruits and vegetables. Since I didn't get that material from online sources that are easy to cut and paste, I will have to change my game plan for something that can be thrown together in considerably less time. The bottom line being - there isn't much over the jump, as I had to slap this together at the last minute.
Before starting, I should say that tonight I made my favorite vegetarian dish, lobhia aur khumbi, and had it with brown rice, avocados from my yard, green bananas from my yard and ripe plantains from my yard. And for dessert, I had a whole papaya, also from the yard (not a bad deal, considering the high price of food nowadays). I have so many green bananas and avocados, I'm at a loss as to what to do with them all! Those of you familiar with my diaries have read about my past harvests.
When you think of tropical produce, you usually think of things like pineapples, oranges, bananas and perhaps avocados (which are all fruits, by the way!). However, the tropical "fruit" par excellance (in my opinion) belongs to the Sapotaceae or Sapote Family:
Sapotaceae is a family of flowering plants, belonging to order Ericales. The family includes approximately 800 species of evergreen trees and shrubs in approximately 65 genera (35-75, depending on generic definition). Distribution is pantropical.
This family includes such diverse fruits as the mysterious MIRACLE FRUIT and the delicious ABIU, (botanical name: Pouteria caimito) associated with the Amazon and Colombia. We have a similar fruit to the abiu in Puerto Rico that we call CAIMITO (botanical name: Chrysophyllum cainito) that also goes by the name 'star apple' (which is not the same as a starfruit).
Speaking of Sapotaceae, how many of you have had a chance to indulge in a ripe juicy treat that we call MAMEY?
The mamey is native to the West Indies and northern South America. It was recorded as growing near Darién, Panama, in 1514, and in 1529 was included by Oviedo in his review of the fruits of the New World. It has been nurtured as a specimen in English greenhouses since 1735. It grows well in Bermuda and is quite commonly cultivated in the Bahama Islands and the Greater and Lesser Antilles. In St. Croix it is spontaneous along the roadsides where seeds have been tossed. In southern Mexico and Central America, it is sparingly grown except in the lowlands of Costa Rica, El Salvador and in Guatemala where it may be seen planted as a windbreak and ornamental shade tree along city streets, and is frequently grown for its fruit on the plains and foothills of the Pacific coast. Cultivation is scattered in Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana, Ecuador and northern Brazil.
The tree is often compared to the Southern Magnolia and its fruit is more or less round (breadfruit-like in shape), described as "appetizingly fragrant and, in the best varieties, pleasantly subacid, resembling the apricot or red raspberry in flavor."
This season has produced a bounty of BREADFRUIT in our neighborhood. Numerous trees can be found along the roads, so what I do is park the car, get on the roof with a long pole with a wire basket at the other end and help myself. According to wikipedia:
Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae, that is native to the Malay Peninsula and western Pacific islands. It has also been widely planted in tropical regions elsewhere.
For you history buffs out there, you might recall that:
Breadfruit was collected and distributed by then Commanding Lieutenant William Bligh as one of the botanical samples collected by HMS Bounty in the late 18th century, on a quest for cheap, high-energy food sources for British slaves in the Caribbean.
According to the Center for New Crops & Plant Products, at Purdue University:
Like the banana and plantain, the breadfruit may be eaten ripe as a fruit or underripe as a vegetable. For the latter purpose, it is picked while still starchy and is boiled or, in the traditional Pacific Island fashion, roasted in an underground oven on pre-heated rocks. Sometimes it is cored and stuffed with coconut before roasting. Malayans peel firm-ripe fruits, slice the pulp and fry it in sirup or palm sugar until it is crisp and brown. Filipinos enjoy the cooked fruit with coconut and sugar. Fully ripe fruits, being sweeter, are baked whole with a little water in the pan. Some cooks remove the stem and core before cooking and put butter and sugar in the cavity, and serve with more of the same. Others may serve the baked fruit with butter, salt and pepper. Ripe fruits may be halved or quartered and steamed for 1 or 2 hours and seasoned in the same manner as baked fruits. The steamed fruit is sometimes sliced, rolled in flour and fried in deep fat. In Hawaii, underripe fruits are diced, boiled, and served with butter and sugar, or salt and pepper, or diced and cooked with other vegetables, bacon and milk as a chowder. In the Bahamas, breadfruit soup is made by boiling underripe chunks of breadfruit in water until the liquid begins to thicken, then adding cooked salt pork, chopped onion, white pepper and salt, stirring till thick, then adding milk and butter, straining, adding a bit of sherry and simmering until ready to serve.
Although Puerto Ricans traditionally eat it boiled unripe as a vegetable accompaniment to saltfish (salted cod), I adapted it to an Indian curry recipe:
Maracatu's Methi Breadfruit Curry:
Breadfruit – just over one pound
Methi Leaves (I use dried but either way they should be finely cut)–1 Cup
Onion – 1 Large
Grated Coconut – 2 Tablespoons
Green Chillies – 3
Ginger – 1 inch piece
Cummin – ½ Teaspoon
Aleppo Pepper – ½ Teaspoon
Salt – To Taste
Turmeric Powder – ½ Teaspoon
Vegetable Oil – 2 or 3 Tablespoons
Ghee – 2 Tablespoons
Brown Mustard Seeds – 1 Teaspoon
Procedimiento
1.Skin and core the breadfruit and cut into medium sized squares; then boil until tender.
2.Chop the onion into thin slices.
3.Grind the grated coconut, green chillies, ginger and cummin to a coarse paste.
4.Heat two tablespoons of the oil on a medium flame in a pan, season with mustard seeds, add the onion. Saute till transparent.
5.Add the groundpaste and saute for a few minutes.
6.Add the methi leaves and saute for few more minutes.
7.Add breadfruit,salt,turmeric and aleppo pepper and mix throughly.
8.Add ghee and allow it to cook stirring occasionally, making sure that all the breadfruit pieces are coated with methi leaves mixture.
Hope you like it.
Now, part of our African heritage is evident in our consumption of YAMS. I always have a number of them growing in the yard, given that they are particularly well suited to inclines. According to wikipedia:
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea (family Dioscoreaceae). These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. There are hundreds of cultivars among the cultivated species.
The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has traditionally been referred to as a "yam" in parts of the southern United States and Canada, but it is not part of the Dioscoreaceae family.
Although it is unclear which came first, the word yam is related to Portuguese inhame or Spanish ñame, which both ultimately derive from the Wolof word nyam, meaning "to sample" or "taste"; in other African languages it can also mean "to eat", e.g. yamyam and nyama in Hausa.
In Puerto Rico, we call them "ñame brujo", or "bewitched" yams, because they take extraordinary shapes depending on their surroundings. For example, my friends and I once dug up a yam that had grown around a big rock. When we managed to dislodge the rock without breaking up the yam, it looked like a giant human hand that was cupping something. Too bad we never took a photograph of it.
Well, if I did a survey of tropical fruits, vegetables and other edibles, this diary would never end. Some additional online resources that can give you a brief overview of what is available include: The Cook's Thesaurus on Exotic Tropical Fruits, and The Pine Island Nursery Products Page, among others.
So what is the wider community having for dinner tonight?