Friday Field Notes--Hechima vs. Gouya

Walking the kids to school last week I noticed  a big vine with bright yellow flowers.  Hmmm--what's that?  So I walked home on the other side of the river to have a look.  When what to my wandering eyes should appear...

Hechima!  Ooooh--first time to actually see this...this...vegetable?  Gourd?  I knocked on it (because, well, you would, too, wouldn't you?), and it had that hollow, gourdy sound.  I asked a passing mom (who confirmed that it was, indeed, Hechima) how you were supposed to eat it.  No idea.  Does anybody actually eat this?  Is it used for anything?  Just decorative?  Well, the flowers are bright and pretty and attracted a number of moths and butterflies (and also a good-sized preying mantis):

The lovely flower above, the start of a Hechima below

Oh!  Just went to Wiki.  This is Luffa Cylindrica, aka Loofa.  You know, that thing you can use to scrub with in the shower!  Ah ha!  I probably should have looked it up first.  Consider this liveblogging, then--those oohs and Ah Ha's are real (meaning, I really do get all excited about stuff like this.  As does my mom:))

Later that day...  my oldest comes home from school, see these photos and insists that his class (4th grade) is growing this stuff at school.  Really?  Are you sure, honey?  Usually you guys grow some kind of flower or vegetable (last year was okra), and I'm not so sure you can eat this...this...thingumbob.  He insisted that the flower was the same.  Hmmm--I was pretty sure they weren't growing Hechima at school.  But what exactly were they growing?  What else could they grow that Koshi would mix it up with Hechima?  Ahhhh--honey, is the vegetable you're growing at school green and bumpy?  Yes!  Got it--it's Goya.  The bitter-but-edible cucumber-like vegetable, not the spanish artist.  But, well, here's why he was confused:

...very similar-looking flower and leaf.  Well, similar to a 10-year-old, anyway.  The Hechima flower is quite a bit bigger, Goya's is quarter-sized.  But both are, indeed, cheery yellow flowers.  The vegetable, though, is quite a bit different, and as soon as I showed Koshi a photo of this...

...he immediately said, "Yeah!! That's it!"  Thank you, thank you very much.  I expect he'll bring one home one of these days, which means I'd better start hunting up recipies now.  It's most commonly cooked in Okinawa in "champuru" (sounds like "jumble"), a kind of eggy stir-fry.  But Momordica charantia, or Bitter Gourd/Melon, actually grows all over Southeast Asia, China, and the tropics.

See the bumpies?  I've never seen this for sale in a US supermarket, but this time of year in Japan, it's everywhere.  They look like they're related to cucumbers, albeit big, bumpy mutant cucumbers that look like a lab experiment gone wrong.

If I end up cooking with it, I'll post the recipie:))



In Addition:

I stopped by school the other morning to see how the 4th graders' Goya was coming along--

Nicely, nicely:))  No veggies yet, but some flowers on a good-sized, healthy-looking vine!  The vine has male and female flowers, and I'm guessing the flower above is female.  The Wiki page on Bitter Melon has some interesting info on medicinal uses for Goya, and several pics of other phenotypes. I picked up some sauce at the store to cook it with pork, onion and shimeji.  Maybe I'll use egg, too, like they do in Okinawa, where it is said that eating Goya increases lifespan (even longer, it seems, than the Japanese generally).

Mata asobou, ne!