Tyranny of the gourd family

A few evenings ago, emboldened by Dutch courage afforded by a tot, or two, or a few, of single malt — but bolstered by the knowledge that my wife had dined early and retired to bed —  I told the cook that no member of the gourd family was to cross the threshold again. After a whole month of playing host to Luffa acutangula, the ridged version, or the smoother aegyptiaca species, a smoother variant — should the Cucurbitaceae family appeal to you — I was ready to do battle with the ridge gourd. Having planted a few of the subtropical vines along the fence of the farm, the bounty of the crop had overwhelmed us. The gardener no longer wanted any; casual workers sniggered at my wife’s attempt to pay in kind instead of cash; and you don’t send baskets of tori to people you hope to retain as friends.

Having become acquainted with the gourd family, I have come to appreciate the many variations that set the varied looking but pulpy family apart. These spineless vegetables have learned to disguise themselves cleverly, but a gourd by any other name is still a gourd. There is the white-flowered gourd that you might better recognise as bottle gourd — lauki — beloved of all those on a diet. There’s pointed gourd which is also referred to as a green potato for no reason I can fathom, and I don’t like it any more by its popular name, parwal. Nor is chichinda — snake gourd — of any consequence as food. As for petha — not to be confused with kaddu, which is pumpkin — it is known as both ash gourd as well as wax gourd, and to muddle things further, also as winter gourd. The last suggests that the gourds, mostly summer vegetables, aren’t vacating their hold on our life even though a faint chill is now setting in the air. 

There are a few other vegetables, leafy for most part, that are also part of the repertoire that finds its way home regularly and gets converted into what seems like cud — grassy feed suitable for cows but at odds when it’s served to meatarians on a regular basis, often, like the gourd, cooked with chicken or lamb so you might as well be eating soupy spinach by its various denominations. It’s served up as Indian saags, Oriental stir-fries or Continental accompaniments on the side, but there’s no escaping it. My wife has trained the cook to include it even in sandwiches. 

We’ve also been getting radish — mooli — on a regular basis and the only thing I can say in its favour is that it isn’t gourd. But the maali has asked for seeds for plantations I have never heard of — chakundar, which sounds like a rodent, but is in fact beetroot that bleeds red over your clothes and leaves a permanent stain; or gaanth gobi, the literal translation of which is a knotted up wild cabbage, but is, in reality, turnip. Who even eats these things?

Nor is the gourd saga nearing closure because, if you won’t eat it, you can use it in other ingenious ways. One of these is the Luffa operculata, a gourd which, when dried, gives you the loofah, beloved of women who pinch it from hotel bathrooms. It’s used for rinsing off one’s dead skin and polishing it to a glow. Neighbours who have managed to escape the gift of tori in their diets can prepare for an onslaught of loofahs instead.