During a recent family discussion, the elders noted that the children in their families don't always like to eat vegetables. They offered the next generation of parents some creative ideas to help their children like and eat more vegetables and fruits as part of their diet.
I argued with my mother, reminding her that I was a submissive child and insisting that I eat whatever was on my plate, to which she responded by listing some of the foods I used to complain about as a child, including a lot of vegetables, with apples at the top of that little list.
But my aversion to apple squash, for rather unfounded reasons, continued long after I was out of my teenage years.
One reason was the derogatory term “tinda” which means apple gourd in Urdu. Students in our school used to tease and make fun of their classmates by calling them tinda. Similarly, one of my neighbours, who I didn't like very much, used to buy apple gourd in bulk from a vegetable seller and was called “Miss Tinda”. This negative association led me to believe that apple gourd was bad.
Apple bitter melon or tinda often gets a bad rap in society, but it is actually one of the healthiest vegetables.
The way vegetables were prepared in my home didn't help either. To cater to my grandmother's needs, they were cooked in a very thin, watery gravy, with two to four halved apples per serving, very few spices, minimal oil, a small piece of meat inside, and served with chapati (whole wheat flat bread).
To me, the recipe and the taste seemed like a meal for patients with gastrointestinal issues. Much later, I realised that it was one of the healthiest food options among the local gravy dishes.
Compared to fried foods and hydrogenated oil based protein rich meals, a light apple bitter gourd meal with thin and watery gravy is one of the most refreshing and relaxing food options and of course, very beneficial for almost all kinds of patients.
As a result of these negative associations, apple gourd was one of the last gourds consciously cultivated and planted in our small backyards. Its scientific name is praecitrullus fistulosus and it is also known as Indian round gourd, round melon, Indian pumpkin and Indian baby pumpkin. Needless to say, this vegetable is more famous in the subcontinental regions and less known in the developed world.
This vegetable has white, soft edible seeds when it is immature, and this is also the time in the growth life cycle of this vegetable when the seeds are soft and white for consumption, which is when it is commercially harvested.
However, the seeds used in cultivating apple gourd are neither soft nor white. These seeds harden and turn black in color as the vegetable matures. The blackened seeds are scooped out of the apple gourd and stored in dry conditions.
Being a summer crop, the best time to sow apple gourd seeds is right after winter ends. The optimum temperature for seed germination is 25-30°C.
Choose seedling trays or sow seeds in paper cups. Potting soil mixed with a little organic compost can be used as a medium for seedlings.
Since seeds are covered with a hard shell, any seed stratification technique will do: seeds can be refrigerated or soaked in water overnight before sowing, or the hard shell can be mechanically treated to scratch it and make it easier for the germinating plant to break the outer shell of the seed.
When sowing seeds in soil, they should be placed at a depth of at least twice the length of the seed. It is considered good to have the pointed thin end of the seed pointing up, but I prefer to place the seeds horizontally and flat.
The key when sowing seeds until they germinate is to keep the soil moist at all times and never dry out. Depending on the quality of the seed, your watering routine and the temperature, seeds may germinate within one to two weeks of sowing.
In future articles we will go into more detail about the care of the apple gourd from seedling to mature vine, the final harvesting procedure, the fertilizers required at different stages, possible pests and how to deal with them, as well as the health benefits of eating this wonderful vegetable.
If you have any questions or would like to send an email to doctree101@hotmail.com, the author is a medical doctor and the host of the YouTube channel “DocTree Gardening,” which promotes organic home gardening.
Published in Dawn, EOS, June 23, 2024
