Christophene

I'm super excited to have discovered a 'new' vegetable in these last few months, it's called a christophene or chouchotte. It looks slightly weird, but is very versatile, it has a taste and texture a bit like a mild radish, though it has funny spiky skin and an almond-like stone. To be honest I had actually seen it for sale here before, but I'd just steered clear of it. But I've been reading a few Caribbean cookbooks, and most recently Ann Vanderhoof's An Embarrassment of Mangoes (about a couple who take a career break to cruise around the Caribbean in a yacht), it's filled with great travel tales and delicious anecdotes and recipes. I've long looked to
Caribbean cuisine to inspire my dishes for the guesthouse, a lot of the same vegetables grow here and there, though we lack the diversity of spices, peppers and chilies, sadly! Anyway I use the christophene in salads to give crunch, but it can also be cooked in a gratin, stuffed or added to stews and curries, it's just another thing to add to my backup list, for the days when I'm tearing my hair out to find vegetables here......