From Sturtevant's Edible Plants Of The World
by E. Lewis Sturtevant
Balsam apple
Momordica
balsamina
Linn.
Cucurbitaceae
Borders
of the tropics. The balsam apple has purgative qualities but is eaten
by the Chinese after careful washing in warm water and subsequent
cooking.
M. charantia
Linn.
Borders
of the tropics. This vine is very commonly cultivated about Bombay. In
the wet season, the fruit is 12 or 15 inches long, notched and ridged
like a crocodile's back and requires to be steeped in salt water before
being cooked. Firminger says the fruit is about the size and form of a
hen's egg, pointed at the ends, and covered with little blunt
tubercles, of intensely bitter taste, but is much consumed by the
natives and is agreeable also to Europeans as an ingredient to flavor
their curries by way of variety. In Patna, there are two varieties:
jetkwya, a plant growing in the heat of spring and dying with the first
rains, and bara masiya, which lasts throughout the year. In France, it
is grown in the flower garden.
M. dioica
Roxb.
East
Indies. This species is under cultivation in India for food purposes;
the root is edible. There are several varieties, says Drury. The young,
green fruits and tuberous roots of the female plant are eaten by the
natives, and, in Burma, according to Mason, the small, muricated fruit
is occasionally eaten. At Bombay, this plant is cultivated for the
fruit, which is the size of a pigeon's egg and knobbed, says Graham.
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