A spiky, green vegetable could help nourish the nation in the face of soaring food prices, a Taranaki man says.
Lindsay Maindonald, of Eltham, may just be New Zealand’s most ardent choko fan.
He’s recently discovered how easy they are to grow, and with produce and grocery prices soaring, he reckons they could hold the key to feeding families.
While many people haven’t heard of Sechium Edule, he chomps them like apples, or boiled, or roasted like spuds, pickled like gherkins, made into sweet meringue-topped pies, bottled in sugar syrup like peaches and spread on toast as jam.
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Lindsay Maindonald is Eltham’s choko king, having harvested around 500 of the spiky green vegetables this autumn.
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“I just love them, they’re the most fun plant I have ever grown,” the veteran mountaineer said.
“They just go rambling off where they feel like it – like me on the mountain. I get such enjoyment out of watching them grow.”
In 2018, he read a story in the Taranaki Daily News about Whangamōmona man Ash Uncles’ quest to give away sacks of chokos, and got in touch to find out where he could nab a few.
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The Macdonald family harvested around 500 chokos this summer.
The reporter, who is also a gardener, gave him a choko vine in a pot, and advice on growing them, so Maindonald sprouted a couple more and popped them in around his garden.
For two years, the vines were meek and well-behaved, but this summer, they went wild, rampaging up large kowhai trees, festooning hedges and smothering a glasshouse.
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Chokos are selling for $4.79 each in the South Island.
Maindonald enlisted the help of his wife, Anita, and daughter, Elizabeth, to gather what turned out to be a bumper harvest.
Atop the ladder, he was concerned in case someone got hit by a careening choko.
“You get the rake up there to get at them, and they come whistling down.”
At last count, there were about 500 of the vegetables which have names a lot more interesting than their flavour.
They‘re variously known as mango squash, mirliton, vegetable pears, Buddha’s hands, cristophines, and the dragon whiskers vegetable, according to Maindonald’s Internet research.
“They’re really high in nutrients, and they were a staple in Australia during the depression,” he said.
But there’s a limit to how many a family of three can eat, despite Anita’s culinary creativity, and the family’s dining room is currently chocka with chokos – seven grocery bags and several boxes full.
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Chokos can be bottled in sweet syrup.
Although Maindonald is still enthusiastic, his daughter now refuses to eat them and Anita tries not to look at them when she comes in the door.
In the South Island, spray-free chokos are on sale for $4.79 each. In Auckland, they fetch $1 each.
In Taranaki, the Maindonalds are hoping to flog their crop for 50 cents each and have listed them on the Stratford Buy and Sell Facebook page. People can also contact Lindsay on 027 434 9267.
