Okra from India

Earlier in the blog I had mentioned my cousin Dolly had brought various seeds from India a few years ago.  We kept them in the freezer "until the time was right" and finally planted them in this our desert garden.
The next couple of entries are going to be about two of the vegetables we planted.
The first one is the Okra (Bhindi in Hindi) plant.  I grew up eating and LOVE okra, so I was especially excited about growing these.  We put the seeds in and they took off!  The plants are thriving in this heat!  After doing research we found that okra is among the most heat and drought tolerant vegetable species in the world!

The history of okra is fascinating...there is alot to read  but this is a good example of how food that we share around the world comes to our regions and eventually our tables.

 Okra apparently originated in what the geobotanists call the Abyssinian center of origin of cultivated plants, an area that includes present-day Ethiopia, the mountainous or plateau portion of Eritrea, and the eastern, higher part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Considering the little contact between that region and the rest of the world within historic times, it is not surprising that little is known about the early history and distribution of okra.

The routes by which okra was taken from Ethiopia to North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia, and India, and when, are by no means certain. Although it has been commonly cultivated in Egypt for many hundreds of years, no sign of it has ever been found in any of the ancient monuments or relics of old Egypt.
Since the Spanish Moors and the Egyptians of the 12th and 13th centuries used an Arab word for okra, it probably was taken into Egypt by the Moslems from the East who conquered Egypt in the 7th century. It requires no stretch of the imagination to suppose that the plant earlier was taken from Ethiopia to Arabia across the narrow Red Sea or the narrower strait at its southern end.
From Arabia okra was spread over North Africa, completely around the Mediterranean, and eastward. The absence of any ancient Indian names for it suggests that it reached India after the beginning of the Christian Era.
Wild Okra on the Upper NileAlthough the plant has been well known in India for a long time, it is not found wild there. Modern travelers have found okra growing truly wild, however, along the White Nile and elsewhere in the upper Nile country as well as in Ethiopia.
One of the earliest accounts of okra is by a Spanish Moor who visited Egypt in 1216. He described the plant in detail, as cultivated by the Egyptians, and stated that the pods when young and tender were eaten with meal. (Southerners in our own country know how to cook it with corn meal-slice the pods, dip the pieces in meal, and fry them.)
Because of the outstanding popularity of okra in the French cookery of Louisiana, and its slow gain in popularity elsewhere in this country, it is safe to assume that it was introduced to this country by the French colonists of Louisiana in the early 1700's. It had been introduced to the New World, however, before 1658, reaching Brazil supposedly from Africa. It was known in Surinam in 1686.
Hope you found that as interesting as I did...


Can you see the pod on the right side of the flower?  The pods develop from the pollinated flowers.

Look at the magnificent flowers! Okra is related to cotton, cocoa, and hibiscus.

They are also known as lady's fingers outside the U.S.

                                           Cut okra

And then there's the incredible health benefits:
Okra is a powerhouse of valuable nutrients. Nearly half of which is soluble fiber in the form of gums and pectins. Soluble fiber helps to lower serum cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease. The other half is insoluble fiber which helps to keep the intestinal tract healthy decreasing the risk of some forms of cancer, especially colorectal cancer. Nearly 10% of the recommended levels of vitamin B6 and folic acid are also present in a half cup of cooked okra.

Love Love Love our Okra plants...seeds from Punjab, India flourishing in Arizona, United States...what a joy they bring to us...from watching the flowers grow to harvesting the pods...and now after reading all the history and health benefits, we can thank them even more for nourishing our bodies...as they continue to nourish our souls...