DISCOVERING CHAYOTES
When I moved and worked in the city, I learned about chayotes--(Sechium edule) is a pear-shaped, bright green fruit from the gourd family.
Working as a vegetable retailer in the Divisoria market, I learned more about it, having a strong supply from the southern Tagalog region. Due to high supply and low demand, it was sold wholesale in sacks by traders for a cheap price. For consumers then it was merely a substiture for water gourd and green papaya so it was not saleable. Luckily for producers, it has a long shelf life.
Anyway, there's another story when I arrived here in New Zealand: green papayas (a necessity for one of my favorite dish--chicken tinola), were so scarce and quite pricey. I had to make a search for its substitute due to craving for a hot consumme when the weather was freezing cold. Using the Bible phrase--"seek and you shall find", I found the chayotes in a market garden,and learned that it can be grown here in New Zealand.
Thank God, one of my friends, knowing that I am also a gardener, handed me one left over chayote from her kitchen that was sprouting. Thinking it was a tropical plant, I planted it in the hot house (green house). Hidden from the sun, it did struggle but gave me one fruit and slumbered in winter time. At spring time, sprouts appeared from the plant's roots, so I dugged and transplanted it outside and exposed to the sun. Thank God, that sole chayote from the hot house survived and gave me more sprouts and fruits in summer. God's graces are shared so the excesses were given away to delighted friends and neighbors.
From then on, the oversupply of chayotes became a problem. The thinker in me urged that something productive must be done so as not to waste God's blessings from the garden. I did a search and found the recipe for one of my fellow Filipinos' favorite side dish--achara/pickled green papaya. Since the chayotes can be a substitute for the green papaya,I made an experiment of making achara using the chayote.
I think it was 'serendipity' that one day, the president of the Wairarapa Filipinos Society--Ryan Soriano, called by our place. I gave him a sample of my achara and he said he's quite pleased with the taste. That gave me the courage to make more of it.
Then one day, I received a phone call from somebody declaring herself as a television crew, saying that Ryan Soriano referred me as the representative of the Filipino community in a TV program--Neighbourhood. The role was to introuce the Filipino cuisine and culture to Kiwi audiences/viewers. i hesitated at first, but after consulting some friends, I was encouraged to say yes, why not?
To make the long story short--David and I were iterviewed and with other Filipino ladies, I was made to present the process of making achara with ingredients from the garden in our cozy cottage kitchen. The story was featured on New Zealand TV One in November 2015
From then on, pickling chayotes became a hobby and a source of a bit of money.
