I grew up in a Southern part of Negros Occidental Philippines, and I can described my hometown as a rural areas, local people survived by means of farming, planting root crops, vegetable raising local and domestic animals like chicken, duck, pig, cow,and carabaos.
We have so many vegetables around like green papaya, kangkong, lupo (sesilli joyweeds) gabi or taro, we usually cook vegetables rather than meat (or fish), we can only have meat when my father wants to slaughter one of his raise native chicken and we usually cooks it as Tinola na manok (stewed chicken in green papaya soup), its my favourite local dish of Hiligaynon. and sometimes cook it as adobo and or chicken with banana stem bud or (ubad).
Sometimes kangkong or water spinach, we cook it as apan apan locally name for a stir fry water spinach, matching with dried fish or tuyo
In my young age, I saw my family living in a ways and means, what I am trying to say is we live each day, what we have everyday, my parents has a small vegetabale plantation in our backyard, like squash, bitter gourd (ampalaya) long beans and green beans (mongo) every morning before the sun rises they already awake and making their way to the backyard after they drink a morning native coffee, that whenever I smell it, also awaken me uo, the aroma and a fragrant of the native coffee beans makes my parents day alive.
During the day, before the sun setting down they will watered the plants in the garden, I can see them very well and dedicated to the plants which I like most. If rainy days my parents wont water the plants they just visited the garden and check of their is some worm that may can infest the garden or they cultivate the soil around the plants to let it grown fully, and during those days, they used organic fertilizers like composed it really healthy with no dints of any chemicals to the vegetables.
When the vegetable fully grown and matured, and when they bear fruits and ripen, its time for a Harvest..if the harvest is plenty my parents are overjoyed, because they said in all of their efforts the plants grow and produce well, they we have to sell it to our neighbours around. Some of our neighbours with no cash and they have sari sari store ( a local convenient shop ) they barter it or exchange for some goods, like coffee, sugar sardines or what ever you like them for exchange in the sort of the vegetables price too.
I like it when we have soup vegetables because I loved the taste of freshly harvested and cook, you can feel the organic taste and its really different from frozen. Everytime I remember my good old days I feel very wonderful, because I learned how to be vegetarian even now, I am not fun of eating meaty meat always, I always love veggies.
Simple kind of living is always the best things to ponder, its because it is a measure on how hard we strives for our lives and a great things to ponder when we are old, it always brings memories back, and the lesson.
Vegetables are best supplements of vitamins. They boost our immune system and make our metabolism work faster. Keep sharing your informative articles