Lifespan of a Chennette

The global food crisis seems to have only come to global consciousness about a year ago, and particularly in the Caribbean when our leaders convened a special summit on rising food prices late last year. Cost and availability of food has been an issue for far longer than that for many people and too many parts of the world, as countries move towards industrialisation and away from agriculture in their goal of development. Growing up in a semi-rural, agricultural area of Trinidad, every household would make garden. Some larger than others, depending on the availability of land. My grandfather, who never really worked in agriculture, still would trek outevery day in his tall boots to the garden. Neighbours shared peas, beans, fruits, trade dasheen bush for avocados, encouraging diversity without having to plant everything yourself. There have been many erudite and helpful writings freely available online, urging people to just grow more food. I just want to highlight the joy that you can get from the act of picking something from the backyard and taking it straight to the pot.

It’s one of the things that make me miss living at home in Trinidad, when I see the family growing saim, sweet potato, bodi, tomatoes, pawpaw, herbs…making almost entire meals from things plucked from a couple metres from the stove. Mom has always paid attention to what we called her green children, but I suppose we didn’t inherit the green thumb, or because of our commute to school, didn’t muster up enthusiasm as children/teenagers to do much planting and reaping. Although…you know how much time we spend picking and shelling pigeon peas? Well, I did the shelling, since people unnamed had fears of worms. I’d shell any amount of pigeon peas, since I love them raw and cooked. Now, as an adult, I think I’d like the opportunity to try this again. I tried with herbs when I set out in the working world and I still remember the great pesto pizza we made from our first basil plant.

It’s not that this cannot happen in Guyana, of course, it’s just that if I were to decide to start to grow things (even on the porch of my flat) they’d all die with my irregular residence. At home, it’s not that the yard is that big either, if you’ve never tried home gardening, you’d be surprised at what you can grow in small spaces.

Lilandra blogged about our home-grown baked sweet potato fries back in April. These are really good sweet potatoes that Mom got months ago (for TT$10 a pound!) and tried planting them. They flourished and they are so pretty, as well as being tasty. Marbled pink and yellow on the inside, when I first cut into them, I thought I was seeing things. And they were so yummy. The photo on the right is the last of the most recent crop of sweet potatoes, a little one that the parents seem to have abandoned on the plum tree. Nevermind, it got its fame by way of its modelesqueness. (See Lilandra’s set of sweet potato pictures, some taken by me)

The saim production is a big source of pride and joy in the household. The parents and I love saim. And fresh saim, straight off the vine into the pot – ohhh, you cannot get better than that. Everytime I passed through Trinidad recently I pick up some parcels of freshly cooked saim (better to freeze the cooked product rather than the beans themselves). I even had meals of saim and dhalpuri in Grenada in a hotel, thanks to the parents’ garden. My favourite saim meal is with rice and dhal, however.

You might of course, wonder what is saim (pronounced SAME, SIM, or SEM depending on which part of T&T you come from).  Well, this is also known as the Hyacinth Bean (Dolichos Lablab), the green variety. The pods and beans are tender when young.

Another bean that is popular in T&T is bodi. It also grows on a vine, and the parents are currently cultivating the pretty purple variety. I believe these are a variety of yard long beans. There’s a popular variety in Guyana, which they call bora, but I don’t think they’re quite the same. Bora seems to be much skinnier and I’ve only ever seen it green.

Then there’s the fig or banana plantation that we’ve always had. I know, I know, it’s never really more than a couple square metres of banana plants, but it always seemed like a thick growth – a plantation. They give rise to bananas, which are a fruit and some may cook the varieties when green (green fig!). Cynthia recently posted about her foray into cooking the banana blossom! Now, that was interesting and I can’t say that I am all ready to try cooking it, but I’d taste it. By the way, did you know that the banana does not grow on a tree? It’s really a large herb! (As in a herbaceous plant as opposed to a woody tree)

Those are some of the things we can easily cook from the yard. I think there should be a whole other post on herbs – bandhania, chives, basil, rosemary, garlic chives…actually, Lilandra’s probably done a post on some of that. Since she’s actually in the belly of the beast…ahm…garden…forced to work in the sun and whatnot If you want to see the fruits the family has harvested or received from neighbours you can visit these previous posts on Caribbean Fruits and Fruits in Season.