Gourds

The cucurbit family supplies a group of watery fruits known as gourds, which contribute useful vitamin C and, depending on the type, carotenes to the diet. Balsam pears, better known as bitter gourds, stand alongside snake gourds, bottle gourds prized for their hard shells that serve as containers, wax or ash gourds, and fig leaf or Malabar gourds. Cooks treat them as vegetables, adding them to pickles and curries. Bitter gourd is treasured across Asian cuisines for its assertive flavour, but foragers should stick to recognised edible kinds, because some wild cucurbits carry bitter, poisonous cucurbitacins.