Okra: a vegetable so slimy you don’t notice how hairy it is.
It’s a gift from the vegetable kingdom.
A member of the mallow family (along with hibiscus, pavonia, hollyhock, Turk’s cap, and even durian), okra inspires a perhaps muted allegiance from vegetable lovers, and usually general disdain from others. Okra, however, redeems itself in its potential for an astonishing array of uses beyond soups and stews: from its seeds can be processed into a protein source or from them an oil comparable to olive oil can be extracted. Stems and leaves could be animal feed. Savvy gardeners of the southern United States, plant a perimeter of okra to appease deer and distract them from other earthly delights within the perimeter.
But its uses don’t stop with edible products: owing to its soluble fat, the mucilage offers benefits of laxatives, ranking okra with psyllium and flaxseed. The gums and pectin can lower serum cholesterol and can be used as a substitute for aloe vera. Like its relative, kenaf, fibers from okra can be fashioned into high-quality paper. Indeed, the Lost Crops of Africa: Volume II: Vegetables leads off its surprisingly entertaining chapter with results of a 1974 US Department of Agriculture survey in which US adults rated okra as one of the three vegetables they liked the least. Surprisingly, children rated okra as one of four they liked second-least. Nowadays, okra doesn’t even crack the top 10 least-liked vegetables.
Okra immigrated to the United States sewn in to the clothing of persons captured in Africa and forced into slavery in the United States. Some in the US South call okra lady fingers, which in an apocryphal story resulted in a cook making a dessert with okra instead of cookies. In African dialects, the word for okra sounds similar to gumbo, and indeed, it is regarded with reference in New Orleans, where it forms the basis and thickener of gumbo, a signature Cajun dish. It can be pickled; fried or roasted to eliminate mucilage); grilled; stuffed; roasted; and added to soups, salads, and stews.
Published by the National Academies Press, Lost Crops of Africa: Volume II: Vegetables, offers a transcendent literary homage to okra. The sheer delightfulness of the language in this scientific volume will bring a smile to even the most mucilage-averse persons. For instance —
“In reality okra could have a future that will make people puzzle over why earlier generations failed to seize the opportunity before their eyes. In the Botanical Kingdom it may actually be a Cinderella, though still living on the hearth of neglect amid the ashes of scorn.” (National Research Council (2006–10–27).
And later —
“In America, where it appears almost exclusively in stews and soups, okra is usually seen in cross section, cut into disks that look like little cartwheels with a seed nestled between each pair of spokes. Okra is also the key ingredient in gumbo, the famous dish of the American South.”
A study in robustness, okra grows easily in tropical, subtropical, and temperate climates, but can adapt to dry climates also. A truly universal vegetable, every part — from mucilage to leaves to fruit to seeds — being a gift from the vegetable kingdom.
