GARDENING: BITTER GOURD

Momordica charantia. With a name like that, you'd half expect to see an exotic Italian chanteuse. But what you are faced with is bitter gourd, or as we say it in Bahasa Malaysia, peria. The Chinese call it foo-kwa.
Although the fruit (vegetable?) itself is warty in appearance, bitter gourd is a gorgeous tropical vine that can be grown easily from seed. The plant needs plenty of sun but, however, it is highly adaptable and can survive in partially shady environments as well, especially if your options of where you want to plant it is limited, i.e. near a porch or under the shade of a tree etc). The plant needs to be well watered (err, water it well, I did not mean water it with well-water) and a combination of loam-compost is ideal from healthy growth.
Bitter gourd's very bitter and crunchy flesh is edible. The fruit's core has seeds which are white when the fruit is still green but the pith will turn blood-red when the fruit has ripened to a golden-orange colour.
The sight of a ripe miniature gourd hanging on the vine is one of the prettiest sights that a gardener can hope to behold. If you leave the golden fruit on the vine long enough, it will burst by itself and the red seeds will be exposed. The gorgeous combination of red and gold is quite a sight, I must confess.
What fascinates me most about the bitter gourd plant is the fact that its many tendrils can literally reach out and grasp another plant or object for support -- across vast space sometimes! It's as if the plant has in-built sensors that know which direction the shoots should head in and this most subtle "movement" is reinforced by the tendrils that grab hold of things and twirl themselves around objects seemingly overnight, like a rhythmic gymnast whose ribbon-props have gone mad.
These magical acrobatic "leaps" that the bitter gourd plant makes as it grows is one reason why I call it the Michelle Yeoh of the plant world -- if you place a time-lapse motion-capture camera focused on it, I'd bet a million ringgit that it would be like you can see the botanical version of Crouching tiger hidden dragon!
The miniature bitter gourd makes an excellent ornamental plant for any garden, with the fruits growing to only 6cm-10cm long. The pretty dark green leaves and equally pretty yellow flowers do emit a strong herbal smell around the plant and this is all the more obvious when you trim or prune the plant. But it is a smell that is not noxious and bearable.
Despite the plant flowering easily and the fruits forming quite easily, having the bitter gourd ripen or grow into an edible size is a it of a challenge. Fertilise the plant well and good plant nutrition will ensure that the plant provides a bountiful harvest on a regular basis. A dose of potassium fertiliser should do the trick.
Nutrition-wise, bitter gourd contains vitamins A and C
Widely used in Asian cooking, bitter gourd is believed to be good for the health.
Be warned though that for diabetics, it can have the dangerous hypoglycemic effect (i.e. can lower blood-sugar level) when consumed in combination with diabetes medication. So, please do not mix it with diabetes medicine: talk to your doctor if you want to include bitter gourd in your diet.
For the rest of us, bitter gourd is a healthy inclusion in cooking.
Some even say that bitter gourd can also lower cholesterol levels, although this claim is not supported by extensive scientific research. Going even further, some people go as far as saying that it has anti-malarial properties. Again, no extensive tests have validated this claim.
What is a valid claim, though, is that all three main races in Malaysia are united in using it in their cooking and believe that the fruit lowers blood-sugar levels as well cholesterol-busting properties.

PHOTO: The ripe miniature bitter gourd is a pretty sight to behold indeed. Picture by FRANCIS DASS, Please credit FRANCIS DASS is you want to use this photo. Thanks.