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| Okra blooms are surprisingly beautiful. |
So, I live in Maryland, and I still grow things like
my grandmother did. I mean to say, I
grow things that my neighbors don’t recognize.
I grow things like giant mustard greens that came from seed given to my
grandmother from a Cherokee man she once knew.
I grow and collards and okra. I
grow depression era dragon tongue beans. I grow sweet silver queen corn that is
a little different from that in the vast fields around me. And I grow cotton, for the medicinal value of
the root (and because the flowers and the bolls are so beautiful).
I have had too much of some of these things, and I
have offered them to neighbors, and to my surprise I have been asked “What do
you do with it?” and my response was, looking over a beautiful crop of
collards, “Well, you eat it.” One
neighbor came to look at my okra just to see what okra looks like. I was more than a little surprised because it
is a common ingredient in Maryland crab soup.
I haven’t had much luck convincing my neighbors to try any of these
Southern delicacies, but I am very pleased that they grow well here (although,
admittedly, my okra doesn’t grow to its vast 12 feet in height that it did back
in North Carolina).
Let me give you the low down on okra folks, it is
good fried in cornmeal and pepper, it is good pickled (I love it hot!), it is
good stewed or canned with tomatoes, it is good down in soups. It is a
necessary component in gumbo. It is good
for you. Okra has plenty of fiber,
vitamins A, C and K, folate, and potassium and folks, it has plenty of
calcium. One cup of okra has 81 mg of
calcium. Not bad for a veggie with 0.2
grams of fat per cup.
 |
| Ideally, you pickle baby okra. I had such a large crop I could hardly get out there fast enough, so I pickled some larger ones for myself. They are good and hot! |
Mustard greens are the spicy greens in my
garden. They are a little bitter, but
they have a kick to them. My grandmother
sometimes boiled them with a bit of pork and a pinch of sugar. I usually sautee them with another variety of
greens (usually spinach), olive oil and garlic, and I put sea salt, pepper and a
pinch of brown sugar in to offset the bitterness. I sometimes mix them into a veggie-goulash of
black beans, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and okra and eat that up with some
homemade hot sauce. (I love that I can
get all of this right from my garden!)
Mustard greens have an incredible amount of vitamins K and A, and have decent
amounts of vitamins E and C, fiber, calcium and iron.
Collards are a staple in Southern cooking. Collards and ham, collards and beans…usually with
some pork mixed in and sometimes drowned in vinegar. I cook collards on the side of a meat dish,
sometimes with some pork mixed in and some onion or garlic, but I have never
liked it with vinegar. Collards have
extremely high contents of vitamins A and K, and appreciable amounts of vitamin
C, fiber, choline, calcium, potassium and folate.
All of this stuff is worth a try, don’t be scared! They taste great, and they're good for you to boot.
*Always check with your primary healthcare physician prior to vastly changing your diet, and check with him/her to be sure that there are no contraindications. It should also be noted that I am an herbalist, not a nutritionist/dietitian and cannot make suggestions as to changes in personal diet plans. Please consult your personal nutritionist/dietitian for further information.
References
Foundation, T. G. M. (2001). Mustard
greens. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=93
Nast, C. (2014a). Okra, raw
nutrition facts & calories. Retrieved January 13, 2017, from http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2497/2
Nast, C. (2014b). Collards, cooked,
boiled, drained, without salt nutrition facts & calories. Retrieved January
13, 2017, from http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2411/2
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