Hard to harvest, easy to hate. So who likes okra?

SURRY

On Friday morning, as sunshine poured out of a blue sky, Clifton Slade paused in his okra field to examine a chest-high plant.

At the very tip of one crooked cane, a tapered, serrated fruit pointed sharply upward. On another stem, a yellow hibiscus-like flower recently had bloomed from a brick-red bud.

“Okra and cotton, they’re kin,” said Slade, a former county extension agent and second-generation farmer on these 285 sand-soil acres in Surry.

Both plants, Slade explained, grow quickly from flower to fruit.

In about four days, the flower of the okra plant will morph into a slender, green pod. It’s the same magic that Slade has witnessed thousands of times between early July and now, when the crop is on the ebb.

Growing okra commercially is unusual in Tidewater, and Slade is nearing the end of his first season doing so. It’s not that the plant is hard to grow; the headache is in the harvest.

Every day, Sabbaths included, from the onset of July until the middle of September, the okra must be picked at just the right time. If pods are not harvested while young – when they’re about the length of your finger – they’ll quickly turn from tender to tough.

The pods are hairy and slightly sticky, and the leaves are cloaked in whiskerlike hairs that inflict the same sensation as contact with fiberglass.

All summer long, Louise McLean and Charlie Parrish, two of Slade’s friends from Surry, have ventured into the rows of Clemson Spineless and Annie Oakley okra to snip off pods with scissors. Parrish sometimes carries five gallons of water, occasionally jamming his arm into the bucket for relief. They always wear long sleeves.

At first, Slade wasn’t sure about growing okra.    

Despite its attributes – okra is high in fiber, vitamin B6 and folic acid – it’s an unusual vegetable that repulses even adventuresome eaters.

Mostly, it’s the mucilaginous, or slimy, interior that offends. Add to that the furry exterior, and you have a food that’s easy to hate.

“It’s a neglected vegetable,” Slade said, referring to the legions of okra haters and the dearth of research on the plant.

For the longest time, Slade put himself on the side of the okra haters. Until he mentioned that fact in public.

That’s when his mother, Ernestine Slade – or “Mama Tine,” matriarch of the Slade clan – corrected him.

“You been eating okra all your life,” she said. “Every pot of butter beans and green beans I’ve cooked in this world I’ve cooked with okra in it.”

Mama Tine’s beans and greens are the hit of her church’s revivals, and she credits her secret weapon: a few okra in the bottom of the pot.

Her son credits her with being a master picker. To make it easier for her next okra season, Slade plans to build Mama Tine a buggy, complete with a canopy and cooler.

He’ll hook it to the tractor and drive real slow, almost idling, so she can harvest until she sees fit to quit.

“While there is a profit, it is a way of life out here,” Slade said, taking in the fields that he cultivates without chemicals or pesticides, the open-air shed where he processes his free-range chickens, the fringe of leafy trees in the distance bordering the endless blue sky.

He points to the John Deere tractor that his daddy, the late Clifton S. Slade, bought in 1968, when he purchased the farm adjoining the one he’d been working for years. On Christmas Day when Slade was 19, his daddy handed him an envelope. In it was the deed for the 1.3 acres of land where his house now sits.

The pointy vegetables harvested this week likely will be the last okra of the year but hardly the final harvest.

In a barren, butter-colored stretch of sand as wide as a pair of pickups, Savannah and red mustard greens soon will sprout. Next to them, in a skinny row, green beans dangle.

Slade walks past his fading watermelon patch to where the sweet potato vines have leafed out. He bends to tug creamy Hayman and rust Porto Rico tubers from the sand and guesses they’ll be ready in time for Thanksgiving.

Later, on this late-summer afternoon, he’ll fire up the John Deere and “throw up rows” of soil for the collard greens. The next day, he’ll sow the seeds.
On Slade’s farm, summer yields seamlessly to fall.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com

Ernestine Slade’s Fried Okra
Sliced fresh or frozen okra
Buttermilk pancake mix, prepared as directed on package
1 cup peanut oil

Heat oil until hot. Test by dropping a dab of prepared pancake mix in the pan; if it sizzles, the oil is ready.
Coat okra in batter and drop one by one into the hot oil, making sure not to crowd. Remove with a slotted spoon when browned. Drain on a paper towel.

To reduce the slime of okra
1 cup okra
¼ cup vinegar
½ cup water
Soak whole okra for five to 10 minutes. Drain and pat dry.

Grilled Okra
Fresh whole okra
Olive oil
Sea salt

Skewer fresh okra sideways, using dual skewers if the okra is long.
Brush with olive oil.
Grill until grill marks appear.
Season with sea salt and serve.
Source: Fred Thompson, author of  “Barbecue Nation – 350 Hot-Off-the-Grill, Tried-and-True Recipes from America’s Backyard”