Long Islanders with roots abroad grow a taste of home

Dr. Gelito M. Ramos

The Island Park garden of Dr. Gelito M. Ramos, 76, an Internist, is a small plot, about the size of two office cubicles, directly behind his medical office, and except for a path to the various crops, every inch is covered with vegetable plants. Near the building are flat trellises about 6x6, covered with the vines of various beans and bitter melons. In the back are the cucumbers, tomatoes and green and red peppers.

He is pictured here with office secretary Carmelita Ramos, left, also of Bellmore, office manager Hilda McGlyn and, below, his bataw beans.

I know you grow tomatoes and peppers in your backyard, but what do you have there that is especially Philippine?

Ahhh, well, we grow ampalaya, which is a bitter melon that we use a lot; patola — it’s a snake gourd but it’s small right now; Baguio, which are string beans; sitaw, which are long beans; and bataw beans.

Where did you get the bataw seeds for growing it?

It wasn’t easy. The nurseries around here sell things like tomatoes and peppers, which we also grow. So we asked around and finally someone told us, “Go to Jamaica or Flushing, Queens — you’ll find it there.” So we went to Flushing and found stores selling the seeds, but some years we’ve gotten it in Jamaica, Queens, where there are also a lot of Asians like Filippinos, Chinese and Vietnamese.

What does it taste like?

Like beans — but a little bit sweeter than regular beans. It’s delicious.

What is it like to grow?
It’s a joy! First you have the vines, then beautiful, purple flowers, and last, they produce a lot of beans. It feels good to watch them growing, especially the flowers, and when you harvest them, they’re delicious.

How do you prepare bataw?

Well, you start with sauteing some garlic and some onions, and then you add the beans. You can add shrimp to the pan, or maybe mix it with some chicken or pork. Another way is to fry the bataw beans. If you like, you can add hot pepper or condiments like that. Any way you cook them, they are very, very good. We Filippinos love them.

What are your childhood memories of bataw?

I grew up in a rural area in the Philippines, and we always had a garden in the back for vegetables and usually we had bataw. It’s easy to grow. Not unlike other vegetables — but this one, you put in the seeds and it grows. I remember my mother used to plant it, and there were always a lot of flowers on it, and then when the bean grows, it has a maroon ribbon around it. It’s just beautiful.

Anything else you want to add?

We all here love gardening. Gardening is my hobby. I have a larger garden in my backyard at home in Bellmore, but this garden we plant for the patients. They come here, and we sometimes give them vegetables or invite them to pick them, and you can see it in their eyes — they love it. And especially the Filippinos, because bataw is a vegetable of our country. They love it.

Santos Gonzalez

Santos Gonzalez, 44, who works in construction and landscaping, has a large backyard in Brentwood, and against the back wall is the corn — mata de maiz — while underneath are tomato, squash and pepper plants sprawling over the ground, all inter-planted as is traditional in El Salvador. In this photo, he stands with his 7-year-old son and helper, Andy. 

What do you grow?

We grow everything! Tomatoes, different kinds of peppers like green ones and red ones, poblano peppers, chilies, ayote (a long, giant, hard squash), cucumbers and corn. Everywhere I’ve lived on Long Island, I’ve grown corn. But at this house, this is my first year. In Spanish we call it elotes. I guess you could also call it mata de maiz (rows of corn).

The corn is gigantic! Where did you get the seeds?

These came from my father-in-law, who sent me a big bag, a pound of corn seed, from El Salvador.

What does this corn taste like?

You have two different tastes: The one that is soft, like for corn on the cob; and another for when it’s dry — you can grind it and make flour, or you can cook it into a paste or dough, and you can make tamales, tortillas, atole, many different things, including bread. When you make the dough, you can mix with water and make a beverage, too. There are a lot of different ways you can make it. Just nothing chemical with it.

What is it like to grow?

Wherever I have lived, I have planted corn. But this is my first year in this house, and I thought we’d have a lot more corn to eat this year because we have a big yard and we’d planted so much. But the squirrels ate all the little seedlings of Home Depot plants and even some of my other corn plants. But at least this corn is too strong for the squirrels. Next year, I hope to work on that problem.

I know it’s not ready yet to harvest, but how are you going to cook your first ears of corn?

The first thing I’m going to make is a sopa de res, a beef soup. You start with the beef in broth, and when it’s boiling you add the ears of corn, maybe you cut them in half. You can add other vegetables like potatoes, celery, carrots and onions. It’s delicious.

What are your childhood memories of maiz?

When I was a boy in El Salvador, we always had corn growing. Acres and acres and acres of it. We cooked with it, and we also fed it to our pigs and hens. We planted so much that we sold it to stores and we sold it by the road. We sold it everywhere. I planted it with my grandfather. Our bull made the rows to remove the dirt and we followed and dropped in the seeds. And when it was ready, we harvested it.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Every step along the way, my son Andy, 7, helps me. He helps with the weeding, and often he does the watering. He helped me plant all the seeds. We have a saying: “If you plant the seeds for a harvest, it gives fruit.” For me, happiness is a garden.

Son Man Lae, known as Mary Son

Son Man Lae, a nail salon owner in her early 60s known as Mary Son, gardens in a small patch of land squeezed between two short buildings on Route 110 in Huntington. It's behind a fence, next to her small nail salon on what was otherwise unused land. Son, of Holbrook, has been in this spot for 16 years and had always seen the tiny lot next to her, and so she asked the owner about 10 years ago if she could plant a garden in it, because, as she says, “I come here at 8:30 and go home at 8:30, so I have no time at home for gardening.” She is pictured here with her sesame leaves, which she eats daily, as a snack or to wrap rice, sauce and a little beef. "It's very healthy," she says.

What do you grow?

I have cucumbers and tomatoes. And sesame leaves!

I’ve never heard of sesame leaves. Where did you get them? 

In the springtime, maybe around the end of April or beginning of May, I go to the Korean supermarket and buy little plants at the store.

What do they taste like? 

Hmmmm, I don’t know how to describe it. They taste clean. And they’re very healthy and very good for digestion. (She picks a leaf and hands it to me to eat. It tastes a little bit like mint and a little bit like the shiso leaves that sometimes are served in Japanese restaurants with sushi.)

What are they like to grow? 

It’s easy. They grow, and when the leaves are big enough I pick them. And most every day in the summer I go out and pick it.

How do you prepare them? 

You can eat them plain like I do. Or you can wrap food in them. I do that, too. I find a big leaf and in it I put a little Korean rice, maybe a little sauce — made from bean sauce with red pepper, garlic, sugar and sesame oil — and then I put a little piece of beef, wrap it and eat it. We call it “ken neep.” Or you can boil them in hot water, and then add them to a pan where you’ve been frying up garlic and roasted sesame seeds and put it on rice. There are lots of ways to make them. We dry the leaves and sometimes add it to our bean sauce to ferment. You can even make a tea with them.

What are your childhood memories of sesame leaves? 

I have eaten them for so long, I’m not sure I remember. I have been eating them since I was 5 or 6. I don’t remember not eating them. In Korea my parents grew it. We used to have a big yard. You see, every Korean house and apartment grows them, along with cucumbers and Korean lettuce. They are something every Korean person loves.

Anything else you want to add? 

Growing them myself is the same as buying, but gardening is my hobby. I don’t have much time, but it’s nice to have them outside, and organic and clean.

Cherian John

Cherian John, 57, a supervisor in the MTA's car equipment division, lives on a neat block in New Hyde Park. At his home, you’ll find a perfectly mowed lawn and ever-blooming rose bushes on each side of his door, and there is not a clue that a massively productive garden is out back. The yard is a half-acre or less, with raised horizontal trellises at both ends that have hanging gourds dripping off the supports. Along the long back fence, a profusion of other vegetables is growing. “From July to December, we don’t buy any vegetables,” he said. He is pictured here under the lattice he made for growing bitter melon, grown from seeds he got while in southern India.

What do you grow in your garden?

Oh, my, I grow a lot . . . sword beans, bitter gourd or melon (called pavakka in the part of India where he’s from), snake gourd, long beans, pumpkin, tomatoes, moringa, curry leaves, cayenne hot peppers, cucumbers, two kinds of spinach, a red and a green . . . I guess that’s about it.

The bitter melon is so beautiful. Where did you get the seeds for planting it?

Yes, I like this variety. It’s special because of the light color, and it’s a little milder than the greener bitter melon. I started growing it from a packet of seeds I’d brought back from India when I was visiting my home state of Kerala [in the south of India]. That was the only time I planted seeds that I’d bought, from a packet. Since then I have always harvested my own seeds. I leave at least one fruit on the vine to ripen until it is red at the end and splitting open. That is when I harvest it, take the seed out and dry it. Then, in March/April, I start the growing. I start my seeds in cups, then I transplant them outside in the garden.

What does it taste like?

It tastes like zucchini sort of . . . but bitter. (He laughs.)

How is it to grow?

You know, it’s hard because on Long Island, we don’t have the humidity and heat that the plants need. If the plant’s not doing well, you get very upset. But I like the waiting and watching. But even so, we grow a lot. You should have been here a couple of weeks ago. We had a forest of gourds hanging down underneath the trellis! This year we had more than 200 pounds. I keep about 30 percent for ourselves, but give the others away to friends and neighbors; most of it I give to my church.

How do you cook it?

You cut it into pieces and saute it with olive oil and onion. If you want it less bitter, maybe sprinkle a little lemon juice over it. Or add a slice of tomato. But I myself don’t like to add anything. I like the taste just as it is.

Tell me some childhood memories.

In Kerala when I was small, my family were traditional farmers. I always enjoyed cooking and helping with the planting and growing. We always grew bitter melon, and we had a vegetable stand. Actually, it’s in most Keralese gardens — they love it!

Anything else you want to add?

Everybody in the family does a little bit in the garden, but I think I do the most. And better. Sometimes I give my brother some of my plants for his own garden, but then he comes over and he can’t believe how big my plants are. I think it’s the way I care for them. I love doing that, but I don’t think my children will carry this tradition. They are in college now, and they want to learn, but they have to be in the garden to learn. I came from a family of farmers . . . I only wish I had more land.

Erica Blake Nugent

Erica Blake Nugent, 44, nurse and homemaker has a garden in Bohemia, outside her back door, with her "mother" Scotch bonnet plant in a large planter — she brings it inside every fall during the cold months — and a variety of herbs in planters around the patio. Her vegetable garden runs along the fence surrounding her pool, with callaloo (which she enjoyed growing up in Jamaica and is pictured here) at one end, then ginger, onions, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. 

What do you grow?

Callaloo, Scotch bonnet peppers and ginger (plus beans, tomatoes, yellow and red peppers, onions, scallions).

When did you start growing callaloo?

I planted my first garden in 2010. We had moved to Bohemia in 2010 in the winter, and I gave birth in April. That summer, I was home and I had a new baby, but I needed more. I went in a neighborhood plant store and picked out plants I knew how to use in my cooking. I picked out cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, thyme and oregano and rosemary. That was the only year I bought plants. But they didn’t have callaloo.

Then, one day, when I was visiting my mother-in-law in Brooklyn, I noticed her neighbor’s garden. In it was a plant I thought I recognized, and I asked him, “Hello, sir, isn’t that callaloo you have in your garden?” And he said, “Yes, but they’re not edible any more because they’re hard and dried up,” and I said, “That is exactly what I want from you. Can I please have the seeds?”

And he gave me a root of the dried callaloo with the seeds on it, and I carefully bagged it up and put it in the car and drove back home with it. I shelled it and kept the seeds safe over the winter. And the next season I had callaloo in my garden, and from then on, I have given callaloo seeds to friends and family in Texas, Missouri, Colorado, and they now have gardens with callaloo. So that’s one plant that’s given me lots of plants that I can give away. From then on I have had callaloo.

What does it taste like?

Mmmmm. It’s like a sister between collards and spinach. I’d say it’s sweet, with a southern taste to it. And it’s smooth when you cook it.

So how do you cook it?

Well, I start with some onions, a little garlic, sweet peppers, a little olive oil and red tomatoes; I saute all these seasonings first. Then I stir in the callaloo, cover, cook for five minutes, and voilá! Done. It tastes so good. All by itself. But if you wanted, you could eat it with bread or rice. It’s very high in iron, and it’s very healthy.

What are your childhood memories?

My father used to be a farmer and a butcher in Jamaica, so he raised all kinds of animals, and he grew lots of different kinds of plants. Callaloo was something we had on Sunday mornings, because that’s when kids aren’t going to school. My mom would wake up and walk just two steps to the farm and pick fresh callaloo. Then she’d strip it [off the stalks], wash it, and cut it up. She would saute it with some green bananas or maybe fried dumplings or serve it with some roasted breadfruit. That was our Sunday breakfast before church. 

Anything else you want to add?

I am carrying on the legacy of my father by gardening, and I’m going to pass it on to my children.