Winter vegetables

Namaste.

January. Now that the rice has all been harvested, the terraces are bare and brown.  However, most will not be left for long in this state.  Already many terraces, near houses and settlements, have been planted out with vegetables which will grow during the winter months, the cold months; cabbage, cauliflower, onions and spinach/greens can be seen growing in any spare patch of land around the town and in quantity in the terraces outside the town.

In the town fresh vegetables, that have been brought down from the hills, are for sale at the vegetable stalls or from baskets besides the road.  The recognisable ones that grow well and are similar to those available in UK, include cabbage, potatoes, onions, cauliflower and broccoli, peas, green beans and tomatoes. Cauliflower in particular seems to grow very well, and there are some huge ones available - big enough to feed a football team, or play football with. There are many vegetables however that I don’t recognise and will need to get advice about what they are called and how they are cooked. 

In the photo the long white root vegetable is a type of radish, a mouli. They can be eaten raw or cooked. The vegetable that looks like a bumpy/prickly courgette is called a bitter gourd and is used in pickles and veg curries.  It is obviously an acquired taste – sour and very bitter – not to my liking but seems to be popular with Nepali people! 

One variety of green bean tastes similar to French beans – but is very long.  Each one is around 30 to 50 centimetres in length.  They are tender when boiled lightly for a short while. Other beans available at the moment have a red mottled case and only the bean inside, similar in size to a red kidney bean, but again mottled red, is used. 

Tomatoes are available here all year round.  I have seen them growing undercover in handmade shelters, not to protect from the cold, but to shade from the powerful sun and torrential rain, I think.  Green peppers and aubergines are also on sale in a few shops in town, but grow further south where it is hotter I have been told.

In the shops at the moment there are many types of potato.   Usually, mostly for sale are small ones, so fiddly to peel, they are deliciously creamy to taste, and are used often for ‘tarkari’ (vegetable curry).  However, the ‘potato’ I saw on a stall yesterday, (the stall holder told me it was potato), muddy and very large, shaped like a piece of tree root and with a raw texture rather like coconut, I will need to taste, as I’m not convinced it is from the potato family. These are used as special food for one of the festival during January. Apparently it should be grated or chopped finely before being cooked. 

A speciality of the region, ‘jimbo’, a cross between chives and spring onions, and only available in the Himalayan foothills is on sale from the baskets of street sellers at the moment.  This is another vegetable I must try – but first to find out how to cook it! 

There is no need to worry about 'food miles' here; only vegetables that grow in Nepal are available in Besisahar, and on most stalls there are only vegetables that can be carried into the town from the surrounding villages, normally in a basket on someone's back.