Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Okra
From: bbombere <bbombere@erols.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 15:15:10 -0400
It's the only vegetable that provides the minimum daily requirement
of both fuzz and slime. Its slipperiness ably serves soups, stews,
salads and sandwiches. So why isn't okra more popular?
True, it enjoyed a brief fling with fame as a key player in the creole
craze (you can't make gumbo without it). But it hasn't inspired any
books or movies, like fried green tomatoes. There are no okra
posters, such as those for chili and eggplant.
The three-volume Encyclopedia of Associations lists no Okra
Organization, no Amalgamated Okra Producers, no International
Okra Marketing Board.
A national okra spokesperson? "Ed McMahon here, for the pod that
needs no platitudes, the pod with panache." Nope. Ditto for throwing
rotten okra at a bad act. And okra anecdotes - anything come to
mind?
Okra just seems destined for obscurity.
True, it does bring its fair share of calls at the Clayton County
Office of the Georgia Extension Service, according to secretary
Hazel Coker - "mostly about problems in growing it."
She tells okra-culturists to regularly cut the pods from the plant,
"so it will keep producing." You can get a lot of pods from just a few
plants, she says, because okra produces from spring to the first
frost.
In most of Georgia that would be five or six months of slime time.
But the acreage in Georgia, at least in the fresh-for-market segment
(that doesn't include backyard gardens) is declining. In 1992, there
were 2,345 acres in okra, compared to 3,052 in 1990, according to
George Westberry, extension economist with the University of
Georgia. Most of that is in Clemson Spineless (no jokes about the
school's athletic teams, please), with the remainder Dwarf Early
Green.
By the way, the "spineless" means without the dense covering of
small spines that make okra downy. The pods still have fuzz, just
slightly less, Westberry notes. (There's no "slimeless" variety.)
Those 2,345 acres put okra in the solid middle of the state's fruit
and vegetable garden. It's 18th, sandwiched between sweet potatoes and
kale. (Watermelon's No. 1, at 40,000 acres.)
Even to get to that modest position, okra traveled a tortured trail.
According to food writer Elizabeth Schneider, it's related to cotton,
is native to Africa and came to these shores, via Brazil and the West
Indies, with slaves. It's a good source of vitamin A and vitamin C,
she adds. All this is in her book "Uncommon Fruits & Vegetables: A
Commonsense Guide" (Perennial, $16.95).
Even though she's an okra fancier (it has, she says, "become more
common than string beans in my home"), she still lists it in a volume
devoted to "uncommon" vegetables, right after nopales, which are
cactus pads.
And surely everybody is familiar with two of her recipes: gumbo and
okra stewed with tomatoes. To okraphiles like myself, those two are
as common as corn bread.
Though Schneider includes a dish I hadn't heard of, an okra salad
from Mr. B's, the new-American-creole restaurant in New Orleans,
she doesn't have a sandwich recipe. So I'll tell you how I make mine:
whole wheat bread, a soft flavorful cheese such as Havarti, and
peppery pickled okra, sliced lengthwise. Eat it fast, lest the okra
slide out.
That elusiveness was what first made okra a kitchen staple, according
to cookbooks of the past century. It was a natural thickening agent,
and recipes always urged boiling for an hour or two.
Schneider recommends steaming, but admits that it becomes less
mucilaginous cooked by that method. And I happen to like the
mucilaginousness (mucilaginosity?).
Not so a friend from Long Island, who had never heard of okra
before he moved here a dozen years ago. After a fried okra cake from
Thelma's, the downtown soul-food bastion, he was converted. Well,
partially converted, beyond communion but not quite ready for
confirmation. When I asked if he had tried it stewed, he looked
startled. "No way," he finally said.
I guess a green, fuzzy pod containing slime and tiny white seeds is
just too eccentric for mainstream tastes. Which is probably what
makes it a specialty here in the South, where eccentricity is not only
tolerated but nurtured.
Chef Boyardi
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: TarzAuntBea@AHHHHeeeYAHooooodlooodlyAAAAAHhh.GoodnessGracious! (RevLurch)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:09:40 GMT
bbombere <bbombere@erols.com> wrote:
>It's the only vegetable that provides the minimum daily requirement
> of both fuzz and slime. Its slipperiness ably serves soups, stews,
> salads and sandwiches. So why isn't okra more popular?
I've grown some okra TREES down here (GA). Three inches across at the
base and seven feet high, but the damn plants are prickly and make you
itch when you go to picking it, and it's snotty and tastes like shit
unless you fry it, then it tastes like barely palatable fried shit.
But my wife demands that I grow at least a few stalks of the nasty
stuff. It's one thing that really should have been sent back to
Africa. It's even worse than ughplant. The flowers are pretty, though.
But that doesn't redeem it. If it was up to me I'd make it illegal. I
can live without gumbo.
lurch
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: reverand@mindspring.com (Sister Pammy of the Soil)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 02:24:31 GMT
Ah, but Lurch, you haven't tried NUTRIA gumbo yet! What will those
clever Louisianians think up next?
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: cuthulu@prysm.net (whatever it is I'm against it)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 02:13:00 GMT
Thus Spake Sister Pammy of the Soil from MindSpring Enterprises:
~ Ah, but Lurch, you haven't tried NUTRIA gumbo yet! What will those
~ clever Louisianians think up next?
There are clever Louisianians?
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: toxiccow@mindspring.com (Sister Pammy of the Soil)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 18:32:50 GMT
How 'bout the women that eat dirt, a cupful or more a day when they
can find the right kind? Researchers in Louisiana have found that this
once-common practice has been driven underground in today's packaged
food culture. Seems smart to me--saves the trouble of growing
something in the dirt first. Why not go right to the source?
Imagine srpeading a thick, creamy hunk of clay over a piece of Wonder
bread, with maybe some collards in clay sauce on the side. Ummmm good!
I know, I got it, this will be great!!! How 'bout Red Clay Nutria
Gumbo???!!!
SPOTS--just ask reverand if I ain't a great cook
Newsgroups: alt.slack,framers.are.us-dig-grunt-sweat-eat-die-die-die
Subject: Re: Okra
From: bbombere <bbombere@erols.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 16:45:14 -0400
RiM wrote:
>
> Sister Pammy of the Soil wrote in message
> <3450e7a2.8479111@news.cphl.mindspring.com>...
> >
> >How 'bout the women that eat dirt
>
> they should try live sparrow. taste ok, hard to catch relative to dirt.
Pica is sometimes caused by mineral shortage,
in the book, "Cien Anos de Solidad" one of the
kids eats wall plaster for the calcium.
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: ksmith@softdisk.com (Kevan Smith)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 17:12:49 GMT
On Fri, 24 Oct 1997 18:32:50 GMT, toxiccow@mindspring.com (Sister
Pammy of the Soil) wrote:
>
>How 'bout the women that eat dirt, a cupful or more a day when they
>can find the right kind? Researchers in Louisiana have found that
this
>once-common practice has been driven underground in today's packaged
>food culture. Seems smart to me--saves the trouble of growing
>something in the dirt first. Why not go right to the source?
Yes, dirt-eating is a common enough practice in the rural areas of
Louisiana. BUT, it's far more common in Alabama and Mississippi. And
it's not really dirt per se, like the kind you'd grow things in. It's
a certain type of clay. For some reason, dirt-eating is more common
among women than men, like about a 99-1 ratio. And for some other
reson most women begin eating dirt during pregnancy.
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: "RiM" <dallastexas@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 17:27:43 -0000
Kevan Smith wrote in message <3450d663.1946730@snews.zippo.com>...
>On Fri, 24 Oct 1997 18:32:50 GMT, toxiccow@mindspring.com (Sister
>Pammy of the Soil) wrote:
. For some reason, dirt-eating is more common
>among women than men, like about a 99-1 ratio. And for some other
>reson most women begin eating dirt during pregnancy.
im not in louis-annnna, but if this is accurate, if i can get all the wimmen
around here pregnant, it would mean a signigicant savings on the grocery
bill. we got lotsa dirt (clay/mud/dust/) i can feed more women than old
charles manson ever dreamed of.
time to go plant some *seeds of life these wimmin are looking hungry
Recycle, Recycle Recycle, the more you eat the more there is to eat!
RiM
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: Re: Okra
From: nospamum@radix.net (MegaLiz)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 22:57:13 GMT
toxiccow@mindspring.com (Sister Pammy of the Soil) wrote:
: How 'bout the women that eat dirt, a cupful or more a day when they
: can find the right kind? Researchers in Louisiana have found that this
: once-common practice has been driven underground in today's packaged
: food culture. Seems smart to me--saves the trouble of growing
: something in the dirt first. Why not go right to the source?
Now THAT's something I could cultivate! A dirt garden! I'm already
THERE.