Home-grown karela

 I wrote a story about karela (widely sold in the U.S. as bitter melon) during National Short Story Month in May. The story described how karela entered my immigrant Indian family's household in the 1970s as a rare delicacy that I particularly found distasteful, and went on to narrate how my disdain for the bumpy, bitter and somewhat sour tasting gourd turned into first appreciation and ultimately passion. The story ended with the seeds saved from a bitter melon we ate in the fall of 2012 sprouting and sporting true leaves in mid-May. Now that it is near the end of August, I thought that an update might be in order.

The update, on a broad scale, is a bit dismal. The sudden warm-up in April that was followed by snow and unseasonably cool weather until early June was not good for heat-demanding, sun loving plants like karela. Even the Otrembiak family farmers (whom I discovered in the midst of talking to them about bitter melons) had trouble with the bitter melon this year, and as of today, I did not see any of the fruits for sale at their stand at the Saratoga Farmers Market. They had a half dozen extra starts, which they generously shared to supplement the seeds I had tried to start. Between their collection and mine, two plants grew into vines. One of the two vines has withered and doesn't look like it will produce flowers, let alone fruits. But the other vine did flower and to date has produced a single karela.

Excitedly, I watched the karela grow through August. Two days ago, when it was about five inches long, I thought I saw another fruit starting to form. To encourage the new growth, I cut the bigger bitter melon off. I have since lost sight of the new fruit, so the one melon might be all that we'll get.

My husband and I shrugged philosophically. Once again, we had made some planting mistakes. Even though Jim did a much better job of giving the various squashes and cucumbers we planted enough space to spread, he did not account for the face that the bigger leaves of the pumpkins, summer squash, and butternuts would crowd out the delicate lady-like vines of the karela. In addition, neither of us quite got the hang of creating an appropriate  trellis for the karela vines until it was pretty much too late.
But we did get the one fruit, and I prepared it tonight. Using a recipe for a Punjabi style fried karela that I had found last year, I cut the gourd into one inch circles and sauteed it in oil, turmeric, dried ginger, and cumin seeds. I removed it from the oil so the excess could drain and sauteed a bit of minced red onion and garlic from the garden, along with a green chili pepper, also from the garden. As the kitchen filled with the aromatic scent of the spices, I tossed the karela circles and stray seeds back into the mixture for a couple of minutes and let everything simmer together. The result was an explosively delicious flavor. Karela, I concluded, is like many other vegetables. It might taste good if you buy it at a grocery store. It probably will taste better if you get it fresh from the farmers market. But from your backyard, it's flavor is indescribable.

We ate it as a side dish alongside a smoked ham steak, roasted eggplant, green beans, and kale. Except for the ham steak, the oil, and some of the spices, everything we ate was straight from the garden. That's been the regimen for the past several weeks. We decide what we're going to eat based on what's growing outdoors. While some produce benefits from a little bit of curing, most of it is picked within hours -- if not minutes -- of being consumed.

As we eat like this with an increased frequency, questions and suggestions come up. We've been encouraged to start selling our vegetables, and just today, we were asked if we would have interest in being part of a co-op where we could conceivably both buy and sell produce amongst a select group of people. We usually respond to these queries noncommittally -- maybe down the road, someday in the future, right now we still have a lot to learn.

People seem to understand -- and respect -- the learning curve. What's harder to articulate is the real reason that I, at least, shy away from selling food. It goes back to raising -- or trying to raise -- plants like karela, which are quite popular among Indians but not widely known in the local markets here. Our failures with karela -- coupled with our sweet success of one bitter melon fruit -- add to our resolution to try harder the next year. If we were growing things for a market, we wouldn't have the luxury of choice in terms of what to plant. We'd lose the ability to experiment, and track notes of what we were learning and not learning in the process. We also would have to grow what sells because we wouldn't be growing food for ourselves as much as we would be growing it for a market.

I will continue to watch the bitter melon vines over the next few weeks, in hopes that we'll have another fruit. If we do not, we will at least remember the fresh, spicy, flavor-bursting taste of our first-ever homegrown karela.