SNOZZCUMBERS

Image by Kodamakitty via FlickrHave you read BFG by Roald Dahl? It's a children's book about a big friendly giant (BFG) who lives with a lot of horrible child-eating giants in a country where the only food that grows is a kind of vegetable called a snozzcumber. These vegetables taste so bitter and disgusting it's almost no wonder the bad giants would rather eat children.

Imagine my surprise when I found snozzcumbers in Japan!! They look like fat bumpy cucumbers. Here they are known as goya (in English I think they are usually called bitter melon.) And they are supposed to be extremely good for your health.  Anyway, there is a special Okinawan dish  called goya champiru which has sliced goya fried with rice, egg, and maybe tofu. I can eat anything, but I don't enjoy champiru at all.

One of my good friends often brings me vegetables from her parent's vegetable garden, and one day she brought me some goya. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, but I didn't want to eat champiru again, so for a few days it sat in the refrigerator. Then one night I was making pizza, and I decided that cheese might offset the bitter flavor and make it palatable. I removed the seeds, which are the most bitter part, and sliced the goya very thinly, then spread it over the pizza. I figured I could pick the pieces out if they tasted really bad, but I didn't need to. My flavor instincts triumphed again!

I like snozzcumbers on pizza.