High on the Hog by Jessica B. Harristraces the African-American experience and the influence of African foods and African-American cooking on the American cuisine. I really enjoyed this fascinating look at the history of the African Diaspora and the origins of some very familiar foods.
I was thinking about this today when I was in the garden picking some okra. According to Harris, the word okra is from the Igbo language of Nigeria -- where the mucilaginous pods are called okuru. It was grown in the US by the early 1700s and was certainly on the menu at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.
I made a simple gumbo with my okra, sauteeing the sliced pods in bacon grease with chopped onion, garlic, and green peppers, then adding chopped tomatoes.
Served over rice, it's gumbo -- a dish with definite African antecedents. Again according to Harris, the word gumbo come from the Bantu languages where the pods are called ochingombo or guingombo.
Plant `em in the spring, eat `em in the summer,
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer.
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one.
Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes,
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy:
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes.
You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure;
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew,
You can make your very own tomato juice.
Eat `em with eggs, eat `em with gravy,
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy.
Put `em on the side, put `em in the middle,
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle
If I's to change this life I lead,
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs:
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see.
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery;
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes.
Time to pick the okra. Okra grows fast -- if you don't pick at least every other day, the pods get too large and become woody rather than tender.
Like this.
The flowers are lovely, hinting at okra's kinship with hibiscus flowers -- and cotton. Okra (hibiscus esculentus) is thought to have originated in Africa -- both the word okra, as well as the word gumbo can be traced back to African languages.
This is a nice size -- it would be lovely steamed and buttered. Many folks (not me) object to okra's mucilaginous quality and prefer it cut up, rolled in cornmeal, and fried or used as a component of soup, okra and tomatoes, or gumbo.
It's an excellent thickener for soups (and in my opinion preferable to the rabbit droppings that some Native Americans are said to have used for thickening.)
Green okra is the norm but I couldn't resist the picture on the Red Velvet Okra seed packet. These pods are beauties and even the ones that I allowed to get too big will be fine in soup.
Sad to say, once blanched. the lovely red changes to a dull green. It' s the same with purple asparagus, cauliflower, beans . . .
