Over twenty years ago, in preparing for a trip to Hong Kong, I wanted to become proficient at eating with chopsticks so as not to embarrass myself. I practiced by using them to pick up dry macaroni until I thought I had acquired some skill. For our first dinner in Hong Kong, my husband and I arrived at the restaurant starving. To begin the meal, the waiter placed a bowl of shiny, round Spanish peanuts in the middle of the table. Ah, food! I glanced around and discovered that the other diners were eating these nuts with their smooth, tapered chopsticks. Gamely, I plunged in—and onto the table went my peanut. Discreetly, I tried again and again in vain. Finally, I snared a nut—but squeezed too hard and, just as the waiter looked our way, “spronged” it against the wall! So much for saving face!

Pac choi, ginger, snow peas, hot peppers, and Oriental chives are most beloved in much of Asia.

Chopsticks aside, we had a wonderful time eating our way through Hong Kong. We dined on familiar stir-fries made with baby corn and pac choi, eggplants with garlic sauce, and asparagus with shrimp. But we also tried the unfamiliar—eels, sea cucumbers, and all sorts of vegetables, mushrooms, and ingredients we couldn’t identify. Regardless of what dish we ordered, the seafood and vegetables were always fresh and the preparation impeccable, and we thought the food, with few exceptions, the best we had ever eaten in our lives. I decided that if I were shipwrecked on an island and could have only one type of food for the rest of my life, this is what it would be—not my own native fare, not even French cuisine, but the food of the island of Hong Kong.

In fact, although we shopped, visited museums, and wandered around the waterfront, food in all its forms became our main interest in Hong Kong. We spent hours selecting restaurants from among the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese choices, and more hours choosing our food. We made numerous visits to the old part of the city, where herb stores abound and produce markets line the sidewalk. There we saw people walking down the street carrying water-filled plastic bags containing swimming fish, and string bags bulging with fresh bamboo shoots and unusual mushrooms. And we saw all sorts of fresh greens—I couldn’t get over the variety. Everywhere I looked were green, leafy vegetables I’d never seen before. Much to the shopkeepers’ amusement (probably because we looked so puzzled as we hovered over the bins), we’d buy all sorts of unfamiliar fruits and vegetables and bring them back to our hotel to taste and photograph them. After laying out a towel to provide a neutral background, I’d set down a spoon to give the picture scale, lay out the edibles, and then photograph them one by one. Then, with the produce well documented, we’d taste everything and make notes.

A typical vegetable garden in Japan is planted with onions, chives, and many different greens. As in much of Asia, the beds are in straight rows and raised above grade.

That long-ago trip to Hong Kong opened my eyes to a whole new world of vegetables and cooking. It became obvious to me that the main focus of Chinese cuisine was on vegetables and that the varieties far exceeded my limited experience. It also became clear that the Chinese food I had eaten in restaurants at home only hinted at the heart of that cuisine. Because fresh Asian vegetables are the cornerstone of Chinese cooking, because restaurants in the United States generally can’t obtain them, and, further, because the American audience is fixated on meat, what I had come across in the States was only a limited sample of Chinese cooking as a whole.

Once home, I began to research Asian cooking in earnest. I visited the community gardens of nearby Southeast Asian neighborhoods and began to frequent Japanese and Thai restaurants to learn about tempura and curries. I sought out Chinese restaurants that prepared pea shoots and gai lon and a Japanese market that featured a whole section of Asian pickles with a tasting bar. As the years went by, accumulating information became much easier as northern California evolved into America’s newest cultural melting pot, one brimming with folks from the Pacific Rim. Now I had Asian neighbors to share food and garden information with, huge new local grocery stores catering to a Japanese and Chinese clientele, and neighborhood markets devoted to East Indians and Southeast Asians—and mine to explore.

By now I’ve not only identified all the produce I collected in Hong Kong, I’ve grown and cooked with nearly all of the vegetables and herbs Asia has to offer. But I am but one gardener-cook, and Asian vegetables and food is a vast subject. I needed many other views. Fortunately, I have been able to spend hours with Asian chefs, including Ken Hom and Barbara Tropp, tour seed company trial plots, and work all over North America with home gardeners and cooks interested in Asian vegetables. One gardener in particular, David Cunningham, who was staff horticulturist at the Vermont Bean Seed Company, even grew an Asian demonstration garden for me to share with you.

Throughout this book, I give information on the vegetables and herbs of Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. You will soon see, however, that I have concentrated on the vegetables and cooking methods of the Chinese, as they cook with the greatest variety of vegetables and the seeds of their plants are the easiest of all Asian varieties for gardeners to obtain. Further, of all Oriental cooking styles, that of the Chinese is most accessible to Western cooks and uses the fewest unfamiliar techniques.

Before you lies a whole new range of vegetables and herbs: Shanghai flat cabbages, Chinese chives, Japanese mitsuba, and Thai basil. As a gardener and cook, you might well be embarking on a lifetime of exploration, and it’s none too soon to start!

Peter Chan’s garden (opposite) is filled with Asian vegetables like pac choi and Asian squash, which in this case, because of cool Oregon summers, was planted in a tall planter box for extra warmth.

Farmer’s markets around the country are often great places to purchase and learn more about Asian vegetables. Here at the Mt. View, California farmer’s market are displays of bitter melon vines, water spinach, pac chois, long beans, and Asian eggplants.

how to grow an asian garden

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