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[GWL]: Oriental/asian vegetables

Hi again....sorry, I should have read all the way down to the bottom before
I replied.Here are a few of what I feel are the most popular vars. These
happen to also be growable; I'm assuming you are writing this article about
growing? 

The Mustard group:
most especially - 
Pac choi
baby bok choi "Ching Chiang"
regular bok choi
Dai Gai Choi (meaning 'chicken vegetable'!)
Joi choi
Peh tsai (chinese cabbage, AKA 'nappa' cabbage) - takes skill to grow 
Gai Lan (chinese broccoli) - ditto 

Amaranthus - known as hin choy - esp. favoured for sick people - apparently
loaded with vitamins, iron, and calcium. It is beautiful, too - purple,
green, red, all colours. I haven't grown this, only the love lies bleeding
var.
  
There are more, like Giant Red mustard, tah tsai (spoon shaped like african
violets) and mizuna, but I never see Asian people eat that. I have spent a
lot of time around chinese markets....I love to hang out there, and I've
never seen these Brassicas for sale at the huge markets in Chinatown here
in Vancouver. They are incredibly easy to grow, but don't like heat. 

Garlic chives
Cilantro (aka 'chinese parsley')
Scallions
And, of course, Daikon - all the different types. Long huge ones, smaller
ones, and the astounding red and white green-shouldered variety 'Shrinmei',
AKA "Beauty Heart". 

All of these are wholesaled by seed suppliers like Tokita in Japan and
'Known You' in China. 
They are retailed by companies like West Coast seeds here in Vancouver.
John Scheepers (Kitchen Garden Seeds) also retails them, as do many other
retailers.

Chrysanthemum - yes....but, ugh. It has a taste that is 'not for
everybody'. Easy to grow, however. But I don't know how popular that
actually is with Asians. In Vancouver roughly 50% of our population is
Asian, and I rarely see this in restaurant dishes, not the ones I'd order,
anyhow. 

Perilla - wonderful, AKA 'shiso' - comes in purple and green. Beautiful in
the garden, but takes forever. It is a tender perennial. And it is only a
garnish, not an actual vegetable, with a very strong flavour. It is used by
japanese as garnish placed beside nigiri sushi. Sometimes they use fake
green plastic ones instead. 

Unless you live in a VERY hot climate, you cannot grow lemon grass, or
yard-long beans. Lemon grass (cympho-whatever) is native to the tropics,
and is a little like trying to grow bamboo from seed. OK if you have a few
years. Yard-long beans are a real challenge to grow.. We dropped them (and
lemon grass) from the catalogue, because no one could grow them
successfully, including us. 

If anyone has been successful, please let me know. I believe there are
folks who grow them in greenhouses near Vancouver.

S

Sharon H. Hanna
Writer & Urban Agriculturist
Member, Garden Writers Assoc. of America
(604) 736 1889

Sharon's catalogue writing/recipes:
http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com

Beneficial insect attraction:
http://www.icangarden.com/document.cfm?task=viewdetail&itemid=3162

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