Magnolias

Ingredients

Baobab - [Monkey Bread B. Adansonia digitata]
Fruit of perhaps the weirdest tree you'll ever see - often called the "upside down tree" because it looks planted root end up. Also called the "dead rat tree" since the mature fruit turns gray and looks like a rat hanging from its tail. The fruit ranges from spherical to cucumber shaped with a hard shell containing a sweet-sour pulp. The tree, which can be 30 feet in diameter, short or tall, is native to Africa but also grows in India and Australia, and as an ornamental in the US.

Leaves are eaten as greens in Africa and the trunks are sometimes tapped for water. The fruit is the part most commonly used for it's sweet/tart flavor and high vitamin C content. The pulp is eaten directly or as an ingredient in various drinks.

Cacao - [Chocolate, Theobroma cacao]
This important mallow grows in the form of a large tree which produces flavorful seeds used to make Chocolate and Cocoa. Medicinally Chocolate is a favorite folk remedy among the ladies, considered an effective treatment for PMS, depression and soured relationships.

Cotton - [Gossypium]
Cotton leaves are not considered suitable as food, but cotton seed oil is important to the food processing industry. Originally used to make soap, this oil is now the preferred feedstock for hydrogenation, a process that makes fats solid at room temperature (Crisco, etc.). See our Oils & Health article for the full ramifications of this process. Cotton seeds contain a mild toxin (gossypol) which has been used as a male contraceptive in China. We trust this has been removed from Crisco. "New Crisco" does not use partially hydrogenated oils.

Durian - [B.Durio zibethinus]
The fruit that "tastes like Heaven and smells like Hell". Considered the "King of Fruit" in Southeast Asia, the spiny 4 to 10 pound fruits fetch a high price. In Thailand durians that have passed through an elephant (undigested) are particularly prized for their perfect ripeness.

The Durian is divided into 5 compartments, each with a large seed surrounded by a creamy pale yellow pulp, the part you eat, and the part that stinks. A compilation of descriptions would come up with something like "over-ripe Limburger cheese with overtones of fermenting onions and rotting fish". Others say it smells like a sewer, and some say "It's really not that bad". All who get past the smell say it tastes wonderful.

Selecting a durian is a difficult process. If a squirrel has bored into it it's probably good, but you should demand a discount. You should be able to detect an odor, but not too much. No odor means it's not ripe. Shaking it you should detect some movement inside, but not much. A heavy fruit with no movement at all means unripe. A lighter fruit with a little movement is what you want. A lot of movement or any cracks means it's overripe. Watch for worm holes in any case and don't buy wormy ones.

Caution: Durians can kill. You don't want to hang around under durian trees as the fruit is hard and heavy and high enough to kill you when it falls, and durians attract tigers who may be more interested in meeting you than you are in meeting them.

Egyptian Spinach - see Molokhia.

Kenaf - Gongura - [Kenaf (Persia, US); Gongura, Ambary, Deccan Hemp (India); Teel (Africa); Java jute (Indonesia); Hibiscus cannabinus]
This is a plant of many uses: rope fiber, paper, edible leaves, oil, animal feed and bedding, fiberboard, engineered wood and thread for fabrics. Currently small crops are grown in California, Texas and Louisiana, mostly for animal feed and bedding, but you can expect it to expand as more of its uses are exploited, particularly since hemp remains illegal in the US (hemp has similar fiberous properties but is not related. There is also a green stemmed variety, but I haven't seen it around here.

Since kenaf is now grown in California, our Indian groceries are well supplied with gongura. This is a very important herb or vegetable in a good part of India (Andhra, Karala, Karnataka). Details and Cooking.

Mallow - [Common Mallow, Cheese plant, Malva silvestris]

This common weed grows just about everywhere in the Spring. The leaves are edible and can be used in salads. Green seed wheels are also edible and often picked and eaten by children. The seed wheels resemble a tiny wheels of cheese, hence the name "cheese plant".

Marshmallow - [M. Althaea officinalis]

Probably native to Africa, this herb is used as food and as a medicinal plant through Europe, Anatolia and Caucasus. Extract from the roots was once used to make the confection that still bears its name. It is closely related to the Common Mallow which is sometimes mistaken for it but the leaf shape is pointier and the mucilaginous properties are much stronger. Illustration by Franz Eugen Kohler for Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen - copyright expired.

Molokhia [Jew's Mallow, Egyptian Spinach, Okra Leaves, T. Corchorus olitorius]
Fiber of mature molokhiya plants is known as Jute, but for use as food the plant is picked young and cooked as greens. As the most important green in Egyptian cooking it's available frozen in stores serving Middle Eastern communities and in season fresh in Southern California, sold as "Okra Leaf". In Egypt leaves are also dried (they are thin and dry quickly) and are crumbled into a powder for use.

The leaves are quite mucilaginous when cooked. Most Americans would consider them "slimy", but in the Middle East the effect is much liked. Details & Cooking.

Okra - [Okra (US from West African); Lady's fingers (Brit); bhindi (India); gumbo (US South - from West African); Abelmoschus esculentus, formerly.Hibiscus esculentus]
Originally from Ethiopia, this mallow was carried as far as Inida and perhaps Southeast Asia by Arab traders. It spread through much of Africa and came to the US. with the slave trade. Okra is now grown world wide and is particularly important in the US South, Africa, the Middle East and India.

In African, Middle Eastern and Southern US cooking okra is valued for it's mucilaginousness (sliminess) which adds body to broths and sauces, but in other parts of the world, India, for example, cooking methods are designed specifically to suppress this characteristic.

Okra Leaves are used in African cooking, but what is sold as "Okra Leaves" in Southern California is a different mallow, Molokhia.For those who fondly remember eating the seed wheels of Common Mallow as children, the taste can be recaptured in more convenient form by eating Okra pods raw. Details & Cooking

Roselle - [Hibiscus, Jamaica, Jamaican Sorrel M. Hibiscus sabdariffa]

Used to worldwide as a medicinal and to make various teas, the dried flower parts are now commonly found in the US in herb shops and ethnic markets. The stems of mature plants are also used for fiber when jute is not available.