A friend recently posted her harvest of eggplants from her kitchen garden. They were the long Japanese variety but of two different colors – purple and green. She was planning on making a south Indian dish “Vangibaath”. Typically this dish is made of green eggplants. If we were to shop at the market for vegetables, we would make sure that we carefully pick just the green ones to prepare the dish.  There would be enough to choose from, so mix and match is never an issue. This small experience got me thinking that its so ingrained in us to shop for uniformity rather than work with a variety. Likely a choice as a result of cultural conditioning.
Foraging for vegetables to cook dinner with, I am often faced with a dilemma of 1 green pepper, couple eggplants in different shapes and colors, a small handful of beans, and four long beans and a small yellow squash all in its prime and peak freshness. A delightful mishmash of colors and textures, and a dilemma of what to make of this. No matter how many of the same variety I plant, I never seem to have enough of the same kind, sacrificing some to the weather, some to the living population in the garden, and then harvesting the rest for us to eat. I dislike the idea of plucking a few each day to collect enough to make a single dish at end of the week. I feel that it defeats the purpose of growing fresh food. With veggies ripening at different times it forces me to be creative in finding combinations that would possibly work well together in a dish.
I had recently read an article that our ancestors always foraged for leaves to prepare for a meal. Intentionally or not, could they have got a wide variety of nutrients in a single meal? Moreover, by foraging, they do not have to deal with megadoses of a single mineral or group that could throw our systems off. This approach is indeed very useful for a home gardener. I now have a different perspective on the problem. I have stopped complaining about not growing enough, and instead learned to be more adaptable and creative. Mixed greens chutneys are pretty much a daily accompaniment in our meals. The leaves that go into the making of it, only I know of. It largely varies on what’s mature and ready for the day – collards, mints, dill, vitamin greens, okinawa spinach, kale, celery leaves, cilantro, cabbage leaves, spinach, chard, bitter gourd leaves and what not. Anything that catches my fancy goes in the making of the chutney. Nothing is off limits here.
Go ahead and explore culinary creations with whatever your garden has produced for you today! Not only will it be delightfully satisfying I am sure it will also be more nutritionally balanced.Â
