Do we know our veggies?

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

I got into it yesterday while discussing the goodness of avocado, but it is true for majority of our agricultural produce: we hardly know them. If we do, our knowledge is superficial; we have not fully exploited their culinary and other uses. Worse, we are losing whatever we know of them.

Do you know, asked Good Friend N recently, that the beautiful, cascading flowers of the decorative plant mendanilla can, in fact, be used as a souring agent? It might be an idea a bit too much for plant lovers, to simply throw this flower into the pan to make sour broth or paksiw, meat simmered in vinegar, considering how lovely they are to look at. But ever the foodie, I counter this thought with: just imagine how sexy our paksiw can become, if they are served with these flowers wilted from the heat.

But the point is made. How many other plants are now wilting in our roadsides and backyards because we have not even identified them yet as edible? One Famous Lady once had a hearty laugh when she passed by the roadsides and saw what she knew as “Nigerian spinach.” She had them harvested, and while they were picking them, the womenfolk went to her and asked her what she was going to do with the leaves. This is my dinner, she told them, at which they were aghast, saying they only feed the greens to their swine. Famous Lady, of course, gave them an instant talk on how to cook the leaves and their nutritional content.

Another example would be the malunggay tree. Thus far, the most popular part of the tree is its leaves, for which we have so many culinary ideas. In fact, given its health and wellness values, there are now malunggay crackers , biscuits, and pasta. But I recall back in the old town, the old folks would use the malunggay flowers in mongo guisado, or sautéed mongo, and how I loved their taste. The young malunggay seed pods are also used as vegetable. Well, I thought that was all there was to this wonder tree, until I found and ate a version of pinakbet in Luzon with slices of the mature malunggay pods. They’re a tad bitter, but a nice counterpoint to the mushy consistency of the rest of the veggies in this dish.

Indeed, it is, well, let me say, unjust, that while we seem to be already embracing foreign veggies like spinach and zucchini, we seem also to be forgetting the local vegetables that we have around simply for the picking.

Why do we have to spend our precious dollars on spinach when there is kangkong and alogbate, camote tops and kulitis growing lushly even in our roadsides? Why go for zucchini when we have eggplant and patola?

While we are at it, I think the most grievous of our sins against our own farms and farmers is our ignorance of their value and our disregard for their produce. An alarming trend is the way we are losing our own eating traditions involving these local plants and fruits. Who among you, for example, know libas or labog are fresher and healthier alternatives to the sinigang mix that come in sachets and little boxes?

And because we have not really given them the importance they deserve, we are also losing the wisdom that generations of Pinoys before us had handed down to us for our own survival.

How many of you know the seasonal cycles of our agricultural resources? In other cultures, they have mastered this to the point that they make preserves of these fruits and plants when they are in season, in preparation for the time when they disappear.

We are slowly losing this wisdom, and I guess, this is one of the reasons why our agriculture has not really pushed forward. Until we learn to eat and celebrate what our own farmers produce, we will continue to be stuck in the agricultural rut where we are now.*

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