The Sweetest Melons: Memories of the Congo

Photo by Aravind Sivaraj CCx2.0

By Jenni Gate

We drove down the hill from our home through the city of Kinshasa. Just outside the city, the jungle was thick. The road was full of pot holes and ruts. Our car bounced along on the rough pavement, heading towards vast stretches of farm land. About 8 miles from Kinshasa, we turned off the road into an open area with several low, concrete-block buildings spread out around a farming compound. Rice paddies stretched into the distance, surrounded by jungle. It was the summer of 1970, and we had arrived at the Chinese Agricultural Research Center. 

The circumstances of our visit were this: Dad, an agriculturist, was working with a Taiwanese agricultural mission in coordination with U.S. efforts to develop rice varieties to help ease the food shortages in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). But they had a problem—the Congolese people would not plant or eat the rice in production from the Chinese Agricultural Research Center. Dad commented to his Chinese counterparts that he couldn’t understand why the Congolese rejected the rice, because all rice tastes the same. The Taiwanese were shocked. The Head of Station invited all Americans and their families out to the farm to taste the different varieties being developed.

Oryza sativa

My sisters and I jumped out of the car, eager to stretch and explore. A group of Taiwanese and Chinese men came to greet us, smiling and nodding at each of us. I don’t remember their names after so many years. They were dressed in tan, gray or black slacks with white, button-down shirts, and polished leather shoes. A few of them wore tightly woven straw hats. A couple of the men gestured at their young sons to come and meet us, and we were soon running and playing tag on lush, green grass in front of the Center.

We toured the farm, learning that the land for the project was provided by Mobutu. There were papaya and mango trees, citrus trees, bananas, and coconuts dotting the landscape near the driveway. Surrounding the homes and research buildings were the rice paddies, each marked with signs bearing numbers representing the variety being produced. The plants looked like long grass in the water, with some that grew as high as 5-ft. tall. Most of the rice was about 3-ft. tall.

Photo: IRRI CCx2.0

We were led through Quonset huts where we saw rice and other vegetable and fruit seedlings in nurseries. In broken English and French, but with great pride, our hosts showed us a large variety of rice seedlings. There were several varieties each of long, medium, and short grain rice plants.

In one Quonset hut, we saw many melons, from honeydew to watermelon. At the time, all watermelons had seeds, so we were impressed when we discovered that the Chinese Agricultural Research Center had developed seedless melons. The seeds inside the melons were miniscule, which  was great news to me. Dad had always told me the big, black seeds that I accidentally swallowed every time we ate watermelon were going to sprout inside my stomach and grow. I didn’t really believe him but, then again, I had no desire to find out.

Seedless by Scott Ehardt CCx2.0

At dusk, the Taiwanese brought us indoors for dinner. We ate a gigantic steamed fish and a dish called Lion’s Head Stew, which was ground meat cooked in a rice-pasta pouch. It was so delicious that I’ve searched for Lion’s Head Stew on the menu at every Chinese restaurant I’ve been to since then, including when I visited Hong Kong years later. I’m still searching, without success. Our hosts had us sample several rice dishes of different varieties of rice. We sampled white, creamy, and brown rice in every shade imaginable. Some rice was white and sticky and tasted like the rice we were used to eating. Some of the rice was almost sweet. A lot of it tasted like cardboard. This was the reason the Congolese would not plant and eat the rice produced by the Center. The rice available in sufficient quantities for use by local farmers had no flavor. But there were many varieties still being developed. When we tasted one variety of rice with a clean, nutty flavor, Dad said, “I want 100 kilos of that.” Our hosts exclaimed that it was their favorite as well.

Red, White, Brown & Wild Rice by Earth100 CCx2.0

For me and my sisters, the best part of the meal was dessert. Iced platters, bearing slices of cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, and yellow-flesh watermelon, all garnished with curlicue shavings from the rinds, were brought out and passed around. The novelty of melons without seeds kept us awestruck.

It was summer in Africa, and those melons were sweet and refreshing.

Photo by Kelly-Wikimedia CCx2.0

That summer treat, exploring all the flavors of rice and melon, has stayed in our family memory for decades. I still love melons, especially honeydew, and the memory of those flavors on that hot summer day still outshines the mundane, commercial flavors of the rice and melons we eat in the States today.

 *****************



As a side note: Years later, Dad took a flight from Jakarta to Hong Kong. He sat next to a young, Chinese man who had been to Jakarta to buy rattan. As they sat talking, the young man mentioned he had been to Zaire. In a flash of recognition, Dad said, “I remember you! You were at the Research Center.” The young man remembered my dad bringing him with us to the Embassy swimming pool on occasion. They exchanged contact information, both commenting on what a small world it is. Indeed, it is.

The Bounty of the Hills: Coorg, India

By Supriya Savkoor

You may not have heard of this tiny place, one of tropical India’s most beautiful regions, but chances are, you’ve tasted one of its many edible delights.

Coorg, in the country’s southwestern mountain range – between the Arabian Sea and the Deccan Plateau, is a tiny, mostly rural region whose economy relies on its rich agriculture, plantations, and forestry. At its lowest elevation, Coorg, also known as Kodagu, is 3,000 feet above sea level, and 5,500 at its highest. Rainy season lasts a long time, close to half the year, and in some areas, receives more than 160 inches of rainfall a year. Just imagine the handsome produce from this weather. And the misty hills and lush, verdant valleys.

Coorg’s number one cash crop is coffee, which thrives in the region’s steepest, shaded areas, intercropped on plantations along with cardamom, peppercorns, vanilla beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, bananas, and oranges. Both practices, planting crops in the shade and intercropping with spices and fruits, are practices said to enhance the unique flavor of Indian coffees. You’ll find lots of rice paddies on the less steep parts of the hilly land. In the valleys, you’ll find ginger crops and meadows and, yes, more rice paddies. And in the forest, honey, rubber, bamboo, teak, sandalwood, and cocoa.

So much of Coorg’s way of life is tied to the land that even its major festivals revolve around it: Kailphodu, on September 3, the time when rice is transplanted, to aid in double cropping late season, and a ritual ceremony is performed to guard the crop from wild animals; in early October, Kaveri Sankramana, to venerate the holy river Kaveri that runs through the region; and Puttari, the rice harvest festival, around late November or early December.

In the last few decades, eco-tourism has become popular too. A number of fairly affluent Coorgis are turning their beautiful old plantation estates into guest houses, which are popular with tourists who want to enjoy all the amazing things to see and do in this verdant land – waterfalls, wildlife sanctuaries, several Tibetan settlements and monasteries, amazing scenery and natural vistas, the Kaveri river, an elephant camp, and lots of outdoor sports, such as whitewater rafting, rock climbing, camping, fishing, and so on.

Many Coorgis have settled into farming today, either as landowners or labourers, but they have a most interesting background, making up a unique Indian subculture. While most Coorgis practice Hinduism, they come from a tradition of ancestor worship as well as the martial arts. Their cuisine includes lots of pork and game dishes, alcohol flows freely, hunting is an age-old tradition, and the traditional garb for men includes a warrior’s uniform – dagger, pistol, and all – and for women, a very different style of wearing a sari.

The region has produced many well-known Indian generals, including the country’s first one after independence from the Brits. Coorgis are generally considered brave and aggressive, and they carry on their age-old tradition of warfare through their rituals, festivals, ceremonies, and weddings. Men perform martial art ceremonies at weddings. At the Kailphodu festival, the one where men prepare to guard their crops from wild animals, all the weapons are removed from the prayer room (owning guns is not much of an Indian tradition, but keeping them in the prayer room has to be even rarer). These guns are cleaned and decorated with flowers in the religious Hindu ritual known as puja. Sports and physical contests take place, including testing players’ marksmanship by firing their guns into coconuts tied atop tall trees.

But back to the coffee.

Legend has it that in the early 16^th century, a Sufi Muslim saint, Babubudan, during a pilgrimage to Mecca, smuggled seven beans of different varieties, from the Yemeni port of Mocha, wrapped the beans around his stomach, then planted them in the southern part of the Indian state of Karnataka, in which Coorg is located. The hill he planted them on, Chandragiri Hills, is now renamed Baba Budan Giri (giri meaning hill). Interesting side note: it was illegal to take coffee beans out of Arabia back then, but as the number seven is sacred in Islam, the saint’s carrying out of seven beans was considered a religious act. Make of his act what you will, but it did mark the beginning of the coffee industry in India.

Soon, coffee cultivation in India spread from southern Karnataka to the neighboring states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. And under British rule, coffee plantations in South India overall flourished so that the colonizers could export them around the world. Today, Karnataka produces two-thirds of all the coffee grown in India, the most common arabica and robusta. And while coffee houses, bars, and co-ops thrive in India itself, about 80% of its production is exported, mostly through the Suez Canal to Europe, the United States, and Japan. About a fourth of this export goes to Italy alone. Indian coffee is particularly popular in Europe for making espresso, as it has less acidity and more natural sweetness. These days, India's production of organic coffee is also taking off.

So the next time you sit down to a cup of arabica or robusta, check out the label. If it’s from India, chances are you’re tasting some of the country’s finest beans. Take a sip, close your eyes, and picture rolling hills and grand estates, and enjoy the result of seven stolen beans.

In With The Old – Mayan Agriculture

Photo by Hannes Grobe

I love history – learning about how things were invented, dynasties built and destroyed, how we’ve changed since the dawn of time. And now with two young kids in tow, my days are full of questions about the what, how, and why of things. As I’m a natural-born researcher, I love getting into the nitty-gritty with the kids as we go on fact-finding missions. This week was no different.

When we sat down to dinner last night, one of my cherubs asked about corn and how it is made. Of course, I know the basics, but this discussion about corn extended into the history of agriculture. Somehow we travelled from Australian suburbia into the land of the Mayans. And this is what we discovered:

One of the biggest challenges the Mayans faced was lack of land, poor soil conditions, and not enough water. As their population steadily increased, so did their need to develop sustainable farming methods.

Initially, the Mayans used a technique called milpa, a slash and burn practice that yields100% productivity in the first year but reduces to 60% in the second year and slightly less in subsequent years. In the spring, before the summer rain, the Mayans would cut down and burn all of the foliage in the area they’d selected to grow crops, then they would use sticks to poke holes in the soil and plant three or four seeds at a time. Maize, beans, avocados, and pumpkins were popular, as well as cacao, the basis for Mayan chocolate. (And who wouldn’t want that?) Their footprint on the land was very light. The Mayans had a rule of only using only 5% of their land for agriculture and allowing the rest to replenish. Crop rotations were a given.

As time wore on, the Mayans discovered the sediment from the bottom of swamps were an excellent source for fertilising the adjacent land. They dug irrigation trenches and created a way of watering their crops they could use year round, rather than rely solely on annual rainfall.

Uxmal - Photo by HJPD

As crop productivity grew, so did the population, and their newfound farming techniques meant they could feed those living close to the swamps easily.

They needed to find another way to supply others throughout the empire so they developed another new system. The Mirador Basin in Guatemala is a perfect example of how a small, swamp-side village grew into one of the largest Mayan cities. With more than 200 pyramids (two times more than in all of Egypt), the Mirador Basin took nearly 15 million man-days of labour to construct.

Around 200 A.D., a drought hit the land. As the crops died, many Mayans perished. They fled the cities for the green forests to forage for food, recreating the lifestyle of their ancestors. Some survived and the rains arrived, but this experience taught the Mayans a valuable lesson. The needed to design new ways to ensure their people wouldn’t suffer a similar fate again.

They designed and built reservoirs in the hills above cities and ensured the irrigation channels sloped down to the population and crops below. They also built new cities such as Tikal, Copan, and Palenque closer to their water supplies. The drainage, irrigation, and reservoir systems designed by the Mayans changed the landscape forever. Instead of a footprint that washed away in the rain, the Mayan’s new agricultural methods were literally set in stone.

When the population continued to increase the civilization buckled under the pressure to feed so many mouths. Instead of the initial 5% rule for crops, they deforested more than 80% of the land, affecting the climate they lived in. The average temperature increased by 10 degrees Fahrenheit and water evaporated much faster, causing yet another water shortage – this time a man-made problem. Scientists have since discovered this was the worst drought to hit the region in 7,000 years. Yeah, that bad.

Once again, those living in cities deserted them and moved to more verdant regions. This put a larger strain on those areas and the entire civilization collapsed like a house of cards. Some Mayans relocated to cities such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, but many perished in the forest en route. The drought eventually ended in the 9^th century but the damage to the Mayan civilization had been done. Those who did survive returned to the ways of their ancestors yet again and for 700 years they constructed towns in jungles that served them well by hiding themselves when the Spanish arrived in 1517.

Cacao - Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture

Today, we use many of the Mayan’s farming methods. Terraced farms, reservoirs, forest gardens and managed fallows are popular ways of cultivating crops around the world, although today’s farmers have adapted most to suit modern-day needs.

So as corn juice flies across the dinner table whilst my kids crunch on tasty corn, they can thank the Mayans for finding ingenious ways to ensure this species of food didn’t disappear. Tonight I’m cooking lentils for dinner. I wonder if we’ll take that historical journey after dessert. What’s on your plate tonight?

The Tea Smuggler of Gilan

Photo by Reza Rezaei

When you drive north along the Chalous Road through Iran’s Alborz Mountains, the craggy cliffs and narrow ravines eventually give way to green forests until finally you spot a glimpse of the Caspian Sea, cobalt blue on a clear day, dusty gray under cloud cover. Drive west on the coastal road that hugs the seashore, and you’ll watch the misty mountains of Mazandaran Province descend to the rice paddies of Gilan. An hour or two later, the landscape changes again into rolling hills covered by a knobby-shaped vegetation. The countryside here is a vast mat of camellia sinensis—better known as tea.

In a nation that boasts 2,500 years of history, Iran’s tea industry is still in its salad days. It all started just over a century ago with a cloak-and-dagger story of subterfuge, espionage, and smuggling.

In the late 1800s, an Iranian prince named Mohammed Mirza (also known as Kashef ol Saltaneh) traveled to India as consul with the goal of learning the tea trade run by the British. But India’s Colonial rulers kept tight control over their precious tea plantations, so the prince went undercover as a French laborer. He learned how to grow, harvest, and process tea and later smuggled 2,000 plants out of the country under the shield of his diplomatic immunity. Mohammed Mirza planted his illicit crop in Lahijan, a city nestled in the green hills of Gilan. Lahijan remains a center of tea production today, as attested by the enormous statue of a teapot on the road leading into town.

Photo by Vivid Colors of Fouman

Several years ago, my husband and I visited a family-run tea farm in Lahijan and received a tour of the fields and processing shed. We drove up a dusty track through tidy rows of evergreen plants that reminded me of the low-bush blueberries I’d seen in the Vermont hills of my youth. A few of the Lahijan tea plants were in bloom, displaying a seven-petalled white flower with an orange center. (Blooming is usually prevented by the harvest, but we arrived in the off-season.)

Some plantations in Gilan use mechanical harvesters, but this one, our guide explained, preferred local laborers who plucked the leaves by hand and gathered the harvest in big woven baskets.

Only the tips of the plant are harvested (the top two leaves and a bud). Over the growing season, the tea is picked three times, and each harvest is called a “flush.” The first flush, in early spring when the new leaves and buds appear after their winter’s dormancy, produces the best quality tea.

The harvested tea is spread out in troughs through which air is blown to wilt the leaves, a process known as “withering.” After that, the leaves are rolled to release enzymes that promote the next step of fermentation. This is a form of oxidation that creates the black tea consumed in every Iranian home.

Lahijan plantations produce the best quality tea grown in Iran, a rich, amber-colored brew. But today, many Iranians prefer imports from India and Sri Lanka, which is putting a tremendous strain on the local tea industry. With a population of 70 million, Iran is the world’s fifth largest importer of tea according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ironically, the most popular brand of imported tea is Ahmad, a London-based company whose blends come from tea varieties grown in India, Sri Lanka, and Africa. So perhaps, in the end, the British got their revenge on the wily Prince Mohammed Mirza of Lahijan.