Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 24th 25th October, 2009

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 24th 25th October, 2009

The Humble Choko

Have you ever eaten choko? If you come from Australia or at least the northern half of it you probably have. Some are probably already saying that they have but not by choice. Their minds are probably going back to when they were children and when slices or segments of this vegetable were covered in white sauce and served along with other vegetables and the meat of their main meal.

Actually, while I say vegetable, chokos are a fruit and appear on the vine after a small flower has been fertilised by a bee. A choko is used mainly as a vegetable but at times finds itself in cooked fruit recipes. Chokos are called various things in other places including chayote. (http://www.marketfresh.com.au/produce_guide/product.asp?ID=38

I have been thinking about chokos since one of the chaplains I work with gave me four chokos that had begun to grow. When she asked if I like d choko and would like
Some to grow, she told me they were growing up the wall already and she needed to do something with them. So the next day, I received four chokos in a plastic supermarket bag and the vines were already at least 50 centimetres long. They appeared to be growing out of the bag.

If you looked at the website above, you will have seen that a choko is a pear shaped fruit with a single large flattened seed. When a choko begins to grow the seed elongates and protrudes like a tongue between lips. Very soon a green shoot will appear on one side of the tongue and as it grows and becomes vine like, it will begin to develop leaves along its length.

Close examination of the tongue at this time will also reveal the beginning of roots which will grow down. This is the time for the choko to be placed just under soil with the vine against a fence or something else that will support its growth. Mine are planted beside a fence.

Often chokos were planted on the wire netting fence of a chook yard (chicken run) which gave excellent support while the choko vine in turn provided shade for the chooks. I imagine too that the chooks regularly provided rich fertiliser for any choko roots that grew under the chook pen.

In days gone by in many Oz backyards, the back of the outdoor dunny (toilet) formed a part of the chook yards and the choko vine would grow up and over the dunny. The choko vine, dunny and chook yard have become a part of the folklore of backyards in Australia until probably the late 1950s. At that time, toilets moved inside the house with the advent of sewerage systems, and backyard chooks were replaced by frozen chickens from the supermarket and shops kept eggs under refrigeration.
(http://www.theherald.com.au/multimedia/images/full/406744.jpg).

Most chokos bear their fruit in abundance. I remember a bandmaster at one Corps who in the choko bearing season would stand beside the Corps Officer in the foyer of the Citadel (church) and hand people chokos as they left the meeting (church service). He sometimes had two bucket fulls to give away. It was at the same Corps I visited a man who was the next day to enter hospital for heart valve replacement surgery. He asked me if I liked chokos. I said yes and he went to the backyard to get them. He was so breathless when he came back from picking them that I felt sorry I liked them.

Sometimes, chokos do not appear to be going to bear fruit. It is sometimes suggested this is because of lack of bees to pollinate them. Some gardeners will suggest that hand pollination using a small feather to transfer pollen from the male to the female flowers (the ones with a tiny choko behind them) is the way to go. I imagine this is what a friend (who is now the chief finance writer for Sydney’s main newspaper) when he told me that his father, a Salvation Army Officer, was stationed in Newcastle, Australia and spent his time studying the sex life of chokos.

I probably like choko best when it is steamed or boiled and then covered in white sauce. I also enjoy them baked along with potatoes, sweet potato, carrots, parsnip and pumpkin. Chokos are rather bland in flavour and have a texture something like potato or pumpkin.

I am not sure whether it is just an old cook’s tale or a fact but it is said that choko takes on the flavour of anything it is cooked with. In the depression of the 1930s and during the rationing and shortages of wartime in the 1940s, choko was used in apple pies and other fruit pies. Some have claimed it was cooked and served as pears. I have also seen a hint in recipe books, claiming that with careful slicing choko can be substituted or used as an extender for green beans without the consumer being aware of the substitution.

One of the most popular uses of chokos is to use it as the main ingredient in making pickles. I hope that is what will happen to a lot of the chokos that my new vines will bear. Of course, it will help if this current drought ends.

Galatians 5 (The Message)

22But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,
23not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.
24Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good--crucified.
25Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.
26That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.


[Listen: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/songs/songs_230.mp3 ]

Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness:
Through the years of yesterday;
Thank you, too, for present mercies
And your blessing on my way.
Thank you for each revelation,
And for what you choose to hide;
Thank you, Lord, for grace sustaining
As I in your love abide.

Thank you, Lord, for sunlit pathways,
Thank you, too, for byways rough;
Thank you for the fruitful summers
Also for the winters tough.
Thank you, Lord, for fragrant flowers
Growing right amid the weeds;
Thank you for the peace you give me
Even when my spirit bleeds.

Chorus
Thank you, Lord, for wayside roses,
Even for the thorns beside;
Thank you for the prayers you granted
And for those that you denied;
Thank you, Lord, for precious comfort
In my hours of grief and pain;
Thank you for your precious promise
Life eternal I shall gain.
Authors: August Ludvig Storm (1862-1914),
Translated Flora Larsson
The Salvation Army Song Book: Song Number: 552


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