Okra's names around the world include luscious lady's fingers, glorious gumbo (Bantu) and beautiful bhindi (Hindi-Urdu) and bamia (Arabic). This tradition-rich, slimy Southern food is much more versatile than a side dish. It's an antioxidant powerhouse with anti-inflammatory properties and a soulful disposition. Its importance as a cultural symbol and its role as "the people’s vegetable" make it even more noteworthy.

Last year, Jessica Harris wrote a fine article, In Praise of Okra. She reviewed its origins, culinary history and migrations through different food cultures. Though okra is probably from West Africa's savanna forest ecotone, according to Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff's "In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World," the origins are debated.

Healing traditions and contemporary research

The healing value of okra is more clear. Let's start in the laboratory, move to the skin and then journey inward to the stomach. In a recent laboratory study published in the Phytotherapy Research, five vegetables including okra, were tested for their antioxidant capacity -- ability to scavenge free radicals. Okra fruit extracts ruled. Moving on to the skin, scientists in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science tested an okra seed extract.

The protective proteoglycans apparently helped reduce skin aging in in vitro and in vivo models. Traveling inside the stomach, Asian medicine traditions use the okra plant as a mucilaginous food additive to reduce gastric irritation and inflammatory disease, according to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The glycosylated compounds found in the fruit inhibit Helicobacter pylori from adhering to the gastric lining. So even if you are turned off by the slime, maybe the healing properties will persuade you to at least take a taste.

Okra cultivation

Okra is a member of the Malvaceae family, as is cotton, and is the main vegetable crop in that family. The largest global okra producers -- according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2007 figures -- are India, Nigeria and the Sudan. The largest exporters are Jordan and Egypt. In the United States, okra grows predominantly in the southeastern states -- Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, Tennessee and Alabama -- because the plant prefers warm climates.

No matter where you grow your okra, make sure you sing to and pray for it when you plant it. At least that is what a study suggests in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Researchers took okra and zucchini seeds and found that musical sounds and healing energy had a significant effect in terms of number of seeds sprouted, when compared to a control group that got no spiritual attention. So send those positive sound vibrations and healing intentions to your growing seedlings.

Okra festivals

Want to have some gumbo and okra fun this summer? Then get yourself to the Annual Okra Festival in beautiful Burkville, Lowndes County, Ala., for the Aug. 27 celebration.

Barbara Evans, founder and activist organizer, reported that: "The Okra Festival was born 11 years ago as an excuse for a neighborhood party. It was so hot and dry that summer that everything else had burnt up except the okra. It reminded me of the strength of the southern people, in particular southern Black folk."

Soon after, it turned into a yearly festival where we "honor our strong people and the mighty okra, which we refer to as 'the people's vegetable.'"

You'll find a friendly atmosphere, lots of great food, music, art and an ambience in which each person is treated with respect and equality.

"We don't put up with self-segregation, and it has been described as a huge family picnic," Evans said. "So y'all come and sweat those corporate toxins out of your pores. Have a little fun. Eat a little food. Support some local artists."

Set your everyday worries aside while you celebrate okra, Evans said. "You can go back to the tight ass world, later."

Sarah Khan is founder and director of the nonprofit Tasting Cultures Foundation, which develops multimedia educational programming on food and culture.

Photos, from top:

Okra seeds.

The annual okra festival is in Burkville, Ala., in August.

Credits: Sarah Khan.

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Informative article. A friend taught me the way to cook okra without the slime is to not overcook it. The recipe I just published in my new vegetarian book is for okra in a tomato and ginger sauce. It made me an okra convert.

a guest , July 12, 2011

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What a great culinary background you have below...I recently made an okra dish where i tossed the young okra in olive oil and sprinkled with salt, and baked it...in the meantime i sauteed onions, garam masala until it carmelized, then added tomatos...i got the south asian flavor without the slime that some dislike...we also recently just grilled them after tossing with oil and salt, and loved the blackened crunch...

sarahkhan , July 12, 2011

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My mother was born into an Italian family that had settled in the Middle East and my mother-in-law was born in Turkey. From them I learned to love and cook bamia in a style that was never gooey. To begin with, they taught me to choose only the very youngest and smallest okra. I bake it, as they did, with tomatoes, olive oil, and lemon juice until the top layer of okra in the baking dish begins to blacken. It can hardly be described as slimy; juicy and and somewhat spicy would better describe it.

a guest , July 12, 2011

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There is a great article about okra in the Oxford American Southern Food issue 2005 where the author Siddartha Mitter, also embraces and loves the slime of okra...some love it and some hate it...thanks for your comment, and expanding the scope, even more, of where this fine food is appreciated...might have to research the properties of baobab leaves next...

sarahkhan , July 08, 2011

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I'm a returned Peace Corps volunteer who taught science in a small town in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where the gooey nature of okra was appreciated. Fresh Okra was chopped and made into a somewhat gooey sauce or stew, but for the majority of the year dried okra was cooked by pounding the pods into a powder and boiling it for close to an hour, sometimes with onions and salt or a bouillon cube. The texture was so gooey that you had to flick your wrist to get the strand of slime between your hand and the dish to separate (most Burkinabe dishes are eaten with your hands by dipping stiff millet porridge into the sauce). A similar sauce was made from the leaves of the Baobob tree, which I understand is not considered edible in other parts of Africa.

annamcampbell , July 07, 2011