Reciprocal/Nature/Inspire
A Colourful Pallet!
in response to the Vegetables Prompt
I love my greens!
And the Red, purple, yellow, white, orange, and all shades in betweens!
Vegetables: a palette of colours!!
Yes, I love my veggies. I cook them, serve them, and eat them with every meal, they are an essential part of my diet, as they make any meal complete, colourful and presentable.
But I always didn't like vegetables and used to almost ‘hate’ some of them, as in my mind, they were ugly, tasteless, and cumbersome to eat. Potatoes were the only tasty vegetable, hence edible, and bearable!
Eggplant called Begun, in Hindi, and brinjal in English, was the most hated one in our household, I mean, among children. According to us, or according to my older brother, Begun had no virtue, as such, as its name suggests, “Be, without, Gun, virtue, and we children wouldn’t touch it in any form, even if it came with all its royal glory!
Then was the pumpkin, the yellow/orange, Kaddu, the second hated one, because it didn’t have a good name, and then was the Karela, which was bitter, and then Bhindi, which was prickly and sticky! Yuk!!
And so, what we didn’t like, naturally, that was the best (or the worst) name, to be used when we fought, and wanted to swear at each other.
Now, in my parents’ house, swearing was not allowed, actually my parents didn’t swear, so, when we children got angry with each other, as siblings do, we called one another by the most hated names.
My brother would call me Kaddu (Pumpkin), I have always been a bit chubby (😀), and we would call my older brother Karela (Bitter Gourd), he was thin and wiry, (ek to karela, upar se neem chada) and my other brother was called Bhindi (Okra/Ladies Finger), as he too was a bit chubby but quite prickly, as he used to get angry and sulk a lot.
We grew up, and moved away from each other, and we still haven’t changed that much, in appearance, though our relationship with each other, and vegetables has changed quite a bit.
I for one, love vegetables now, all of them, ok, except for karela, Okra, and Pumpkin! I can eat them now, but still, only once or twice a year!!!
And, I love buying, cooking, serving, eating, and talking about vegetables! In our house, since we have a bit of backyard, we have even tried, really tried, to grow some vegetables, and have been successful!
Yes, last year, we had successfully grown, three or may be four, pumpkins!!
Here is one of them, it looks beautiful, and though it was quite small, (smaller or the same size as our two-cup tea pot), my husband, who was the proud grower of this beauty, kept it displayed with great pride on the kitchen bench for a week or so, till we finally ate it!
One year, we also grew potatoes, almost enough for one full meal for two, and they were delicious, roasted, with red wine!!
Then we were able to harvest some cherry tomatoes, two beetroots, and some colourful beautiful capsicum, which actually turned out to be really hot chillies, and for us, were inedible!
Once, encouraged by our success with hot capsicum, we had also experimented with Karela, but then gave up, not because they didn’t grow, but just the opposite, they grew like weeds, so many, and since we are not even very fond of them, I had to give them away, though I did freeze a few batches, for a rainy day!
Another time, it was zucchini, which took over our lawn. To begin with, not much was happening, as the flowers male and female flowers bloomed every morning, but no bees, and no pollination, (which made us realise the impact of climate change, and disruption to the echo system), so, my husband started to use a syringe to ‘mate’ the male and female flowers, and then for some reason the bees also started to come back, and that season, we had zucchini, literally coming out of our ears, we had nothing but the zucchini, or the green Kaddu, as I discovered, it is called in India, and just two beetroots.
And oh, we also grow spinach that used to be another disliked vegetable in my vocabulary, but it is now a great favourite. I use fresh spinach from the garden, raw in salad, or stir-fried in omelettes and mushrooms in butter, Yum, or I cook it as our favourite Indian dish, palak paneer (our children and our non-Indian guests, they all like it), though, Billoo, our cat, still doesn't think much of it!
So, that’s my veggie lovetory. I love my greens!
Oh! by the way, we had joined a community garden a few years ago, and for a few years, helped grow organic vegetables, and every year, we sold these veggies to visitors, and one year, we raised around $1000, that was used to buy some new, and fix some old gardening equipment.
This community garden was the proud winner at the Easter Show, as for a few consecutive years it won the first and the second-best prize for the size, and the quality of its produce.
Yes, in the case of vegetables, size does matter, and so do, the quality, and the quantity!!
Dr. Preeti Singh’s post and prompt on vegetables was very interesting.
It reminded me of rahri wallahas, street vendors in Indian towns, who go to Mandi, the wholesale markets in the morning to bring fresh vegetables to your doorstep, in hand driven trollies, every afternoon, calling:
AA Ja aa ja, Karela, tamatar, gobhi, bhindi, aaja aaja, le le le le taza taza!
Their sing song voice gets women out of their houses, and gather around them, deciding, selecting, buying what they want to cook that night!
These vendors, not only sell them the fresh veggies, but can also give ideas, and suggest interesting recipes, once I overheard a woman, just mumbling, “I don’t know what to cook today”, and the clever sabzi wallah said,
“Bibbeeji, cook some of these green peas with paneer, and put love and fresh coriander and if husband doesn’t eat his fingers along with the peas, I will change my name, and refund your money!”
I’m sure not only her husband, but her children might have relished the mattar paneer dish!
I read Mia Verita’s wonderful article on vegetables and their value in our diet, and was awe stuck by her creativity, and her story of working in a farm, alongside her 80+ grandmother and her similar age sister!
Planting Vegetables and Harvesting Joy | by Mia Verita | Reciprocal | Jan, 2023 | Medium
Shubha Apte has written a lovely post on vegetables, and her love for her greens, and photography. She also mentioned about her useful conversations with the vegetable vendors!
Photography| Nature| Weekly prompt. | by Shubha Apte | Reciprocal | Jan, 2023 | Medium
Finally, if children don’t eat their greens, which certainly is a problem in our processed food crazy society, to make children eat vegetables, here is a story of a veggie monster, who catches children if they don’t eat veggies, and puts them in a cage. And if the kids start to eat vegetables, they can defeat the monster, so eat veggies, to be a winner!!
Thanks Dr. Preeti Singh for this prompt, and your encouragement to write something on this topic.
And many thanks to Sahil Patel, and Yana Bostongirl, for this great publication Reciprocal, which encourages such work.
