Are You Acquainted with the Black Gram?

By “Awake!” correspondent in Malaysia

THE black gram is a small bean with a black skin and creamy white flesh. It is grown from Pakistan to Indonesia, and in many countries in between. It is a common food among Asian peoples.

The plant is suited to areas with no more than thirty-five inches of rainfall per year. It is broadcast or is sown in rows, and takes about 120 days to grow from seed to harvest.

An important characteristic of the plant is that it plays host to a special type of bacteria that has the ability to change free atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates. These bacteria reside in the root nodules, and feed on the carbohydrates manufactured by the plant, and the plant, in turn, feeds on the nitrates formed by the bacteria. When the roots of the plant slough off, or decay, the surrounding soil is enriched with organic nitrates.

So the plant is a natural fertilizer. Farmers who realize this make good use of it. After the beans are harvested, they plow under the plants and leave them to enrich the soil.

Besides serving as a fertilizer, the plant is also used as a cover crop. That is, it is planted in between rows of corn, as in the Philippines, to keep the soil-depleting weeds out, and to maintain the fertility of the soil for the main crop. It is also grown extensively as food for livestock.

The black gram makes nutritious bean sprouts. After washing, the beans are soaked in well water for about seven hours; this expands them. The beans are then placed on banana leaves in wooden crates, and a dripping-wet gunnysack is placed on top of the beans. The crates are then kept in a shady spot and watered every four hours.

Well water is used rather than tap water because it produces sprouts that are more robust and plump, and have more selling weight. If the beans are soaked on a Saturday noon, the sprouts will grow to the top of the crates by Thursday morning, and will be ready for market.

The leaves and gunnysacks keep the beans damp and dark during germination. The same principles can be adapted for home sprouting. Any container that drains well, say a scrubbed flowerpot, would do. Clean damp cloths can be substituted for the leaves and gunnysacks. However, bean sprouts are sold so cheaply and plentifully at the local markets that Asians do not care to sprout them at home.

Bean-sprout stems are round and spongy, about two to three inches long, with half-inch roots. The heads of the sprouts are yellowish, about twice the size of the dried bean. Before cooking the sprouts, the roots are first broken off. The best way to preserve the high vitamin C content of the sprouts is to short cook them the way the Chinese do.

A Chinese housewife might sauté crushed garlic in one and a quarter cups of hot oil for half a minute, then add about three cups of washed sprouts, and stir for two minutes. She adds salt and chopped spring onions, and stirs for another minute. After that, she adds half a cup of water and cooks for two more minutes. With that, the sprouts are ready.

Sprouts grown from the black gram are an extremely versatile vegetable. They make a fine dish by themselves. Or mixed with bamboo shoots, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and so forth, “they form a delicious mixed vegetable dish. Also, they combine readily with pork, ham, chicken and beef to make tasty courses.

The black gram’s high protein content particularly makes it a valuable contribution to the diet. However, the bean’s protein is not entirely assimilated by the body due to the bean’s deficiency in certain amino acids. But if the beans are eaten with other foods high in those amino acids in which the beans are deficient, the bean proteins are more useful to the body. One authority says that the “inclusion of a small amount of animal protein, e.g. milk or fish protein, makes a diet based on cereals and legumes [such as black gram] fully satisfactory.”

Daily, millions of Indians eat the black gram for breakfast in the form of dosai, a pancake made from the fermented batter of rice and black gram. This meal is as popular as bacon, eggs and toast is to many North Americans.