I love okra, but Mark hates the slime. Putting it in a curry or vindaloo solves this problem, as well as as supposedly thickening the sauce.
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I am uncertain if I would call Red Pithaya from The Canary Islands, exotic however, it is not commonplace. Used with other fruits in desserts or eaten like one would eat a Kiwi.
The Canary Islands grow Pithaya however, the Mexicans call it Pithaya also, and the Thai call it Dragon Fruit and the Columbians call it Mamey.
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Do you mean it’s exported from America to India?
It must have been a different variety. The chili would burn my mouth, but without it I felt I was eating animal feed, so I would go back and get the chili/lime again. The street ones at least had some grill flavor and I could get by.
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More likely that it’s replaced what’s grown there given the great hybrid seed takeover.
Well, I’ve never (knowingly) eaten animal feed 
BUT - desi corn (like desi murgi and desi bakra and all the rest) is tougher / more toothsome - and considered more flavorful.
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I was interested to learn from the Modernist Breadcrumbs podcast that rye flour in the US is apparently not grown for human consumption (like sweet corn vs feedstock corn) but is actually animal feed rye diverted for human use.
I might be misremembering the technical aspects (since they didn’t lay out the differences between how other grains are produced for various types of consumption) but the upshot seemed to be that they had to import rye or rye flour from Europe to properly evaluate its qualities.
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Isn’t all corn originally from America? in the pre-Columbian era, corn existed only in the new world. When did corn get to India? 17th/18th/19th century? Did the English bring it?
I recall the lessons from grade school about how Squanto taught the Plymouth pilgrams how to grow corn.
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Talking about the French and salad ingredients, two things that I absolutely love in salads are frisée which I rarely see in grocery stores in the US and mâche which I never ever see. When I was in France, you could pick up cellophane packages of mâche in any market. Why don’t Americans eat mâche or frisée? So much more interesting than iceberg, romaine or green leaf. Even common western European foods can be uncommon in the US.
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I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it at Windfall Farms in Union Square.
Possibly the Portuguese whose involvement in India predates Britain’s and, of course, they had the involvement in the Americas (which also brought chilli to the sub-continent).
As you say, common in our supermarkets where, in the UK, we call it lamb’s lettuce. I dislike the texture of frisee so try to avoid it as much as possible.
It reminds me of hair. I am not a fan.
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Yes many things are originally from elsewhere (as discussed on other threads - chillies, tomatoes, potatoes, the list goes on).
The comment was about modern hyrbridized / genetically modified seed which is very different than the corn that existed before. Even in the US, what’s most easily available as “sweet corn” is probably not the corn of 50 years ago, never mind 18th C or pre-Columbian.
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Reminds me of the classic Punjabi vegetarian dish, aloo gobi. Potatoes probably introduced to India by the Portuguese. And cauliflower, probably introduced by the British.
My chef pal and I found frisee at the local farmers market and were over the moon excited. That night was a gorgeous salad lyonnais (diced apples and crispy lardons, dressed with a mustard vinaigrette made with the bacon fat and topped with a runny poached egg).
I think that and a baguette (and a cold rosé) was all we are for dinner.
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Damned autocorrect. It was all we ate for dinner not an existential experience with frisee.
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Damn. I preferred it when I thought you meant “I eat, therefore I am”.
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I love okra, but the first time I bought and cooked it, it was too tough to chew. I didn’t realize you’re supposed to pick the small pods - I chose the largest. 
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Often, chicory has light green interior leaves. They are identical to friseé, and MUCH cheaper. For all I know, friseé IS the heart of chicory.
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Thanks everyone for the replies. I must start reading them again. Last few days I was really busy, so I just read answers on my mobile as I could, but I missed a lot of it. These answers were of great help.
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This Yankee-born girl had a similar run-in with okra when I married my Southern born and bred first husband. He asked me to make okra (which I’d never even eaten, let alone cooked)…so I bought huge fat pods then carefully sliced them up before steaming them.
He lifted the lid of the pot to find a beautiful batch of glue.
Soon after that I discovered Camille Glenn and Nathalie Dupree.
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