A gourd is a name given to the hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants of the genus Lagenaria. It is in the same family as the pumpkin. Gourds are the product of the calabash or African bottle gourd, native to Africa, which at a very early date spread throughout the world by human migration. This species may be the oldest plant domesticated by humans.

Gourds were originally used by people as containers or vessels before clay or stone pottery. The original and evolutional shape of clay pottery is thought to have been modeled on the shape of certain gourd varieties.

In addition to utilitarian uses, gourds have seen other functions throughout history in various cultures. Very early specimens of squash shells discovered in Peru indicate the use of squashes as means of recording events of the time. In North America, the carving of pumpkins and some other squashes into Jack-o-Lanterns is a popular cultural activity during Halloween.

The shell of the gourd, when dried, has a wooden appearance. Drying gourds, which takes months in some cases, causes the internal contents to dry out completely, although seeds are often still capable of germination. For the uninitiated, cutting open a dried gourd can present hazards. The resulting dust is extremely fine and can cause respiratory problems.

It has also been found that gourd skins were used to replace missing portions of skulls in Neolithic times as part of surgery. This is seen as evidence of prostheses made of very fine gold sheet and gourd skins, which were inserted in the skull under the skin or to cover the hole left by an operation.

Generally, gourds are used more for utilitarian uses than for food. Only a few varieties are harvested for consumption, mostly in Asia. White gourd juice is a common beverage retailed in China and Chinese outlets outside China. It has a unique, smokey taste.

The Feijoa, also known as Pineapple Guava, is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing 4 to 20 feet in height, originating from the highlands of southern Brazil and parts of Colombia, Uruguay and northern Argentina. It is named after botanist João da Silva Feijó, a Brazilian botanist.

The fruit, maturing in autumn, is green, ellipsoid and about the size of a chicken’s egg. It has a sweet, aromatic flavor. The flesh is juicy and is divided into a clear jelly-like seed pulp and a firmer, slightly gritty, opaque flesh nearer the skin. The fruit drops when ripe, but can be picked from the tree prior to the drop to prevent bruising.

Feijoa is usually eaten by cutting it in half, then scooping out the pulp with a spoon. The fruit have a juicy sweet seed pulp, and slightly gritty flesh nearer the skin. The flavour is aromatic and sweet. Like the closely-related guava, the fruit pulp is utilized in some natural cosmetic products as an exfoliant.

It can also be used as an interesting addition to a fruit smoothie, and can be used to make feijoa wine or cider. It is also possible to buy Feijoa yogurt, fruit drinks, jam and ice cream in New Zealand. The Feijoa can also be cooked and used in dishes where one would use stewed fruit. It is a popular ingredient in chutney.

Fruit maturity is not always apparent from the outside as the fruits remain green until they are over-mature or rotting. Once the seed pulp and surrounding flesh start to brown, the fruit is over-mature but still can be eaten. However, these over-mature but not rotten fruits can be used to make a delicious juice very popular in the Colombian Highlands.

Feijoa has been spotted in Georgia and both flowering and fruiting in Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and California. It is widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree in New Zealand, and can be found as a garden plant in Australia, Israel and China. The shrub has very few insect pests. In northern California, robins, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, starlings, scrub jays, towhees and grey squirrels feast on the flowers and assist with pollination.

The Spider Plant is a species of Chlorophytum native to South Africa.

They have long narrow leaves that are 8–15 inches long which grow from a central rosette. At the spot where a leaf would normally develop a node, these plants will produce roots down into the soil, and new above-ground shoots. It also produces branched stolons with small white flowers and baby plantlets.

It is a popular houseplant. The most widely grown is the variegated cultivar with one or two broad yellowish-white bands running along the length of each leaf, but natural, entirely green plants are also grown. The Spider Plant is an especially popular plant with beginners, as it is easy to grow and propagate and is very tolerant of neglect, being able to thrive in a wide range of conditions. 

Spider Plants can be propagated by splitting its main rosette, or more easily by removing plantlets from the stolons and potting them separately or putting them in a glass of water. They will root readily in water but establish faster in soil while still attached to the parent plant. Pinning the plantlet to the soil with a bent paper clip can be helpful. Make sure the soil is damp and well draining. The plantlet can then be removed from the parent plant in 7-10 days.

Spider plants have also been shown to reduce indoor air pollution.

Nasturtium, literally “nose-twister” or “nose-tweaker” as a common name, refers to a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Tropaeolum. They have showy, often intensely bright flowers and rounded, shield-shaped leaves with the petiole in the center. The intense color can make macrophotography quite difficult. The flowers have five petals and a funnel-shaped nectar tube in the back. The most common use of the nasturtium plant in cultivation is as an ornamental flower. It grows easily and prolifically, and is a self-seeding annual.

In cultivation, most varieties of nasturtiums prefer to be grown in direct or indirect sunlight, with a few preferring partial shade. All parts of the plant are edible. The flower has most often been consumed, making for an especially ornamental salad ingredient. It has a slightly peppery taste reminiscent of watercress, and is also used in stir fry. The unripe seed pods can be harvested and pickled with hot vinegar, to produce a condiment and garnish, sometimes used in place of capers, although the taste is strongly peppery.

Nasturtiums are also considered widely useful companion plants. They repel a great many cucurbit pests, like squash bugs, cucumber beetles, and several caterpillars. They have a similar range of benefits for brassica plants, especially broccoli and cauliflower. They also attract black fly aphids, and are sometimes planted in the hope of saving crops susceptible to them as a trap crop. They may also attract beneficial, predatory insects.

Zucchini is a small summer squash. It can be yellow, green or light green, and generally has a similar shape to a ridged cucumber, though a few cultivars are available that produce round or bottle-shaped fruit. In a culinary context, zucchini is treated as a vegetable, which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Zucchini is one of the easiest vegetables to cultivate in temperate climates. As such, it has a reputation among home gardeners for overwhelming production.

Like all summer squash, it has its ancestry in the Americas. While most summer squash were introduced to Europe during the time of European colonization of the Americas, zucchini is Italian in origin, as the result of spontaneously occurring mutations. It was almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants and was probably first cultivated in the United States in California.

Unlike cucumber, zucchini are usually served cooked. It can be prepared using a variety of cooking techniques, including steamed, boiled, grilled, stuffed and baked, barbecued, fried, or incorporated in other recipes such as soufflés. Zucchini can also be eaten raw, sliced or shredded in a cold salad, baked into a bread, and hot and barely cooked in hot salads, as in Thai or Vietnamese recipes.

In France zucchini is a key ingredient in ratatouille, a stew of summer vegetables prepared in olive oil and cooked for an extended time over low heat. The dish, originating near present-day Nice, is served as a side dish or on its own at lunch with bread. In Turkish cuisine, zucchini is the main ingredient in pancakes made from shredded zucchini, flour and eggs, lightly fried in olive oil and eaten with yogurt.

In Lebanon, zucchini is stuffed with minced meat and rice plus herbs and spices and steamed. It is also used in various kinds of stew. In Bulgaria, zucchini are fried and then served with a dip made from yogurt, garlic and dill. Another popular dish is oven-baked zucchini covered with a mixture of eggs, yogurt, flour and dill.

While easy to grow, zucchini, like all squash, requires plentiful bees for pollination. In areas of pollinator decline or high pesticide use, such as mosquito-spray districts, gardeners often experience fruit abortion where the fruit begins to grow then dries or rots. This is due to an insufficient number of pollen grains delivered to the female flower. It can be corrected by hand pollination or by increasing the bee population.

The tomato is a plant in the nightshade family that is typically cultivated for the purpose of harvesting its fruit. Savoury in flavour, the fruit of most varietals ripens to a distinctive red colour. The word tomato comes from a word in the Nahuatl language, tomatl. The specific name, lycopersicum, means “wolf-peach”.

Aztecs and other peoples in the region used the fruit in their cooking. It was being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably other areas by 500BC. It is thought that the Pueblo people believed that those who witnessed the ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of divination. The large lumpy tomato, a mutation from a smoother smaller fruit, originated and was encouraged in Mesoamerica.

Tomatoes are now eaten freely throughout the world, and their consumption is believed to benefit the heart among other things. They contain lycopene, one of the most powerful natural antioxidants. In some studies lycopene, especially in cooked tomatoes, has been found to help prevent prostate cancer. Lycopene has also been shown to improve the skin’s ability to protect against harmful UV rays.

They are used extensively in Mediterranean cuisine, especially Italian and Middle Eastern cuisines. The tomato is acidic. This acidity makes tomatoes especially easy to preserve in home canning whole, in pieces, as tomato sauce, or paste. Tomato juice is often canned and sold as a beverage. Unripe green tomatoes can also be breaded and fried, used to make salsa, or pickled. The fruit is also preserved by drying, often by sun, and sold either in bags or in jars in oil.

The leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant, as a member of the plant genus Solanum (Nightshade), contain the poison Solanine, which is toxic to humans and animals. Children have been poisoned by a tea produced from the leaves of the tomato plant. The fresh fruit is however harmless.

The town of Buñol, Spain, annually celebrates La Tomatina, a festival centered on an enormous tomato fight. Tomatoes are also a popular “non-lethal” throwing weapon in mass protests; and there was a common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a stage during the 19th century. Embracing it for this protest connotation, the Dutch Socialist party adopted the tomato as their logo.

Olive oil is a fruit oil obtained from the olive, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. The wild olive tree originated in Asia Minor and spread from there as far as southern Africa, Australia, Japan and China. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps. Olive oil is used throughout the world, but especially in the Mediterranean.

Over 750 million olive trees are cultivated worldwide, 95% of which are in the Mediterranean region. Most of global production comes from Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Olive oil is produced by grinding olives and extracting the oil by mechanical or chemical means. Green olives produce bitter oil, and overripe olives produce rancid oil, so for good extra virgin olive oil care is taken to make sure the olives are perfectly ripened.

First the olives are ground into paste using large millstones or steel drums.If ground with mill stones, the olive paste generally stays under the stones for 30–40 minutes. A shorter grinding process may result in a more raw paste that produces less oil and has a less ripe taste, a longer process may increase oxidation of the paste and reduce the flavor. After grinding, the olive paste is spread on fiber disks, which are stacked on top of each other in a column, then placed into the press.

Pressure is then applied onto the column to separate the vegetal liquid from the paste. This liquid still contains a significant amount of water. Traditionally the oil was shed from the water by gravity, since oil has a lower specific weight than water. This very slow separation process has been replaced by centrifugation, which is much faster and more accurate. The centrifuges have one exit for the heavier watery part and one for the oil. Olive oil should not contain significant traces of vegetal water as this accelerates the process of organic degeneration by micro organisms. The separation in smaller oil mills is not always perfect, thus sometimes a small watery deposit containing organic particles can be found at the bottom of oil bottles.

The oil produced by only mechanical means as described is called virgin oil. Extra virgin olive oil is virgin olive oil that satisfies specific high chemical and organoleptic criteria suchs as low free acidity, no or very little organoleptic defects. Sometimes the produced oil will be filtered to eliminate remaining solid particles that may reduce the shelf life of the product. Labels may indicate the fact that the oil has not been filtered, suggesting a different taste.

There is a large body of clinical data to show that consumption of olive oil can provide heart health benefits such as favourable effects on cholesterol regulation and LDL cholesterol oxidation, and that it exerts antiinflamatory, antithrombotic, antihypertensive as well as vasodilatory effects both in animals and in humans.

World production in 2002 was 2.6 million tons, of which Spain contributed 40% to 45%. In 2006, Turkey accounted for about 5% of world production, similar to the Spanish province of Jaén alone, well known for the biggest olive groves in the world. Of the European production, 93% comes from Spain, Italy, Greece.

A plum is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, which includes almond, apricot, cherry and peach. The fruit is sweet and juicy and it can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes. Plums come in a wide variety of colors and sizes. Some are much firmer-fleshed than others and some have yellow, white, green or red flesh, with equally varying skin color.

When it flowers in the early spring, a plum tree will be covered in blossom, and in a good year approximately 50% of the flowers will be pollinated and become plums. If the weather is too dry the plums will not develop past a certain stage, but will fall from the tree while still tiny green buds, and if it is unseasonably wet or if the plums are not harvested as soon as they are ripe, the fruit may develop a fungal condition called brown rot.
 
Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine. When distilled, this produces a brandy known in Eastern Europe as Slivovitz, Rakia or Palinka. The Serbian plum is the third most produced in the world and the alcoholic drink slivovitz is the national drink of Serbia. Their plum production averages 424,300 tonnes per year.

A large number of plums are also grown in Hungary where they are called szilva and are used to make lekvar (a plum paste jam), palinka (a slivovitz-type liquor), plum dumplings, and other foods. The region of Szabolcs-Szatmár, in the northeastern part of the country near the borders with Ukraine and Romania, is a major producer of plums.

Dried plums are known as prunes. Plums and prunes are known for their laxative effect. This effect has been attributed to various compounds present in the fruits, such as dietary fiber, sorbitol and isatin. Prunes and prune juice are often used to help regulate the functioning of the digestive system. Prune marketers in the United States have, in recent years, begun marketing their product as “dried plums”. This is due to “prune” having negative connotations connected with elderly people suffering from constipation.

Various flavors of dried plum are available at Chinese grocers and specialty stores worldwide. They tend to be much drier than the standard prune. Cream, Ginsing, Spicy, and Salty are among the common varieties. Licorice is generally used to intensify the flavor of these plums and is used to make salty plum drinks and toppings for Shaved Ice or baobing.

Pickled plums are another type of preserve available in Asia and international specialty stores. The Japanese variety, called umeboshi, is often used for rice balls, called “Onigiri” or “Omusubi”. The ume, from which umeboshi are made, is however more closely related to the apricot than to the plum.

The mei plum blossoms are considered traditional floral emblems of China. On June 21, 1964, the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China officially designated the mei plum blossom to be its national flower, with the triple grouping of stamens representing the Three Principles of the People and the five petals symbolizing the five branches of the ROC government.