Complete Book of Vegetables

I picked up a copy of Matthew Biggs's Complete Book of Vegetables yesterday. Flicking through it on the train on the way home, I've already got several ideas for new vegtables to try: soya beans for one - I tried and failed a couple of years back, but I am keen to have another go next summer as I absolutely love endamame, the Japanese dish of steamed soya beans sprinked with salt. I also came across a couple of things I'd never even heard of - the Doodhi, for one - a "vigorous annual climber grown for edible young fruits, shoots and seeds"- it's also known as the bottle gourd.

The book's a great combination of practical advice on how to grow each vegetable, a bit of its history, and a recipe or two based around the vegetalble. For instance, did you know that the name "chard" comes from the french "carde" and derives from the resemblance of the leaves and stems to globe artichokes and cardoons? There's also an entry on the chayote, a climber that produces huge fruits that I know of as mirliton from my time living in Louisiana: it's a popular ingredient creole cooking, served stuffed with spicy shrimp and crabmeat.

Comments

[moonbells]

If you decide to grow the Ustie Soya beans next year, beware: they rot very quickly when you plant them, and I lost my first planting this way despite rootrainers and a heated propagator. I resorted to lining takeaway boxes with damp kitchen paper and chitting beans on this: I got nearly 100% germination that way and then potted up the sprouts when the roots were about a cm long. You eventually get 18" high plants with furry stems and pods - and if you want edamame as I did, you have a very narrow window between them being too flat and small and starting to go orange-brown and drying. So watch them closely at the start of September onwards, pick and freeze! Pods start forming mid-end July. See July's diary for pod piccies!

Best wishes, moonbells

[Jane Perrone]

Thanks for that - very useful guidance!