Friday, February 8, 2008

Momordica Charantia

Bitter Cucumber (Momordica Charantia) are being boxed at a South Miami shipper for the market place. Momordica is a genus of about 45 species of annual or perennial climbing herbaceous or shrubby plants belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, natives of tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Australia. These vegetables have been used in Chinese folk medicine for centuries as a 'bitter, cold' herb, and have recently been brought into mainstream Chinese medicine as well as natural medical traditions around the world. It has been shown that the immature fruit might have some antibiotic, anticancer, and antiviral properties. Not for me. I never touch or eat these.

Bitter Cucumber

2 comments:

Shosh said...

I love this one...used to eat it when I was back in Philippines.

Dallas Daily Photo

SongLinh said...

My mom made the best stuffed bitter squash with ground pork mixed with clear noodles and "black ear" mushroom. And she made it as a soup. The clear soup is so delicious with a very unique flavor, a little bitter, but sweet in its own way! Yummy! Yummy! Yummy! Medicinally, it can be used to ease down eczema, and baby diaper rash. Cooking it with a large pot of water, and use the water for a bath! It cured my baby niece of her eczema rash in 1 or 2 days!!! pretty amazing! Because it's cold in nature, it's able to clear internal body heat! Nice fresh shot of the squash!