Angled Luffa, Luffa acutangula

60cm long fruit of the Angled Luffa

A friend of mine told me today that I should stop growing so many "trick" vegetables and stick to the tried and true Aussie ones. Bloody unlikely I say, though I don't mind a good Brussel Sprout! This is an Asian vegetable which I have grown for the first time this past summer. I used the fruit when they were quite small at about 10cm long. They have ten distinct equidistant ridges on their surface which when peeled off before cooking leaves a nice striped pattern. The flavour was mild and sweet and much like a zucchini so it is something I will save the seed of and grow again next spring. It is a climber which needs a trellis at least 2 metres high. Flowering and fruiting is triggered by the shorter days of late summer so February here is when you can expect a good crop. I didn't quite get the chance to take a photo of the flowers which were a unique incredibly bright milky yellow..... luminous is the word to describe them.
A few other names for it if you see it in an Asian market : sze gwa in China, petola-sagi in Malaysia and murop kai in Vietnam. Other common names include Silk Gourd or Ridged Gourd