AN ANGLE TO IT: PATOLA

One of those vegetables which, for some unfathomable reason, none of your white friends or acquaintances ever plant in their garden and then try to unload baskets of anonymously on your front porch perhaps because you've seen too much of it already at harvest time is angled loofah. Why is that?

They're actually a splendid vegetable. Good with eggs, shrimp, in soup with pork, or stirfried with tofu and chilisauce. Or a combination of all of that. If you're English, tomato paste.

Luffa acutangula: 絲瓜、勝瓜 ('si gwaa','sing gwaa'), oyong, patola).

A mild almost fruity flavour. Very easy to cook.

The biggest effort is peeling them. Start with the ridges, and continue stripping them with the peeler till most of the skin is gone. Be sure to choose only younger ones, so that they do not yet have the fibrous qualities that make them good for scrubbing your skin.
That's the mature fruit, harvested after it's dried on the vine.

Yesterday afternoon I had it with scrambled eggs and rice. A simple meal. I wasn't particularly hungry. And it didn't take any effort. There is still plenty of loofah left, because I cook for only one person, what with being a bachelor. My apartment mate has the same habit; though sometimes there's a little extra because she worries that I might not be eating enough.

For some bizarre reason she thinks she's overweight.
And that I am too scrawny.


It's more likely that it's the other way around.


I would have cooked enough, but I don't know if she likes loofah.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================