According to Edward Gilbreath, son of the infamous columnist who wrote under the pseudonym of Ashley Cooper for the Post and Courier, “One of the running gags in my father’s long-standing daily column of some 40 years was his aversion to okra. He just couldn’t stand it — particularly plain boiled okra.” Personally, I love fried okra.
This summer’s heat has provided plenty of these “love ’em or hate ’em” pods, so much so that I am pickling okra and making gumbo for the freezer as well as craving the traditional fried okra side dish. Okra pods can be fried, stewed, pickled and even eaten raw. Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is a flowering plant in the mallow family native to East Africa, cultivated throughout tropical and warm temperate regions of the world.
If you look closely at the lovely flower of okra, you’ll also see a resemblance to a hibiscus flower. That is no coincidence. Okra is a member of the hibiscus family.
Okra has fibrous fruits or pods, each containing rows of round, white seeds. It is among the most heat- and drought-tolerant vegetable species in the world. Biologically classified as a fruit, okra is generally utilized like a vegetable in cooking.
Sometimes referred to as “lady’s finger,” okra comes in two colors — red and green. Both varieties taste the same, and the red one turns green when cooked. The plant was introduced from East Africa to the Americas by 1658.
Its presence was first recorded in Brazil. The first use of the wo.