In Defense of the Ochro: Ideological Statements By My Mother

By A. Jeffers Toby

This book represents the author's interpretation of the tools used by his mother as a measure of
her need to ensure his successful developmental process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999093716

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Ochro

As a citizen of Trinidadian & Tobago (hereafter referred to as Trinbago) by birth, I grew up with the knowledge that of the many culinary experiences afforded to the local population, there are two must eat dishes that drives the culinary Trinbagonian experience.

The first dish is callaloo which is described as a thick soup made with green leaves, usually dasheen leaves and ochro, seasoned with salted meat or crab (Winer, 2009; p. 155).

The second dish is called coocoo which is described as a dish usually made with grated corn or cornmeal, sometimes with grated cassava, boiled with ochroes and butter. Sometimes a small amount of salt meat and seasonings are added. It is usually molded in a bowl and turned out to be sliced (p. 243).

It is interesting to notice that the common element in the two dishes is ochro (the Trinbagonian version of the word Okra) which is an edible fruit/pod from a perennial flowering plant which belongs to the Malvaceae (mallows) family and named scientifically as abelmoschus esculentus (Okra Nutrition Facts, 2016).  Winer (2009) described the ochro as a cultivated plant with large yellow hibiscus-like flowers with edible green fruit pods, pointed at one end, sides slightly ridged and slimy when cooked (p. 643).

The Benefits of the Ochro

In terms of outlining the nutritional benefits of the ochro, Barret (2016) stated that a one cup (100 grams) serving of the edible pods contains: Fiber (2.5 grams), Vitamin C (16.3 milligrams), Folate (46 micrograms), Vitamin A (283 (international units), Vitamin K (40 micrograms), Niacin (Vitamin B3 - .9 milligrams), Thiamin (Vitamin B1 - .1 milligrams), Vitamin B6 (.2 milligrams), Magnesium (36 milligrams), Manganese (.3 milligrams) , Beta Carotene (225 micrograms), Lutein  and Zeaxanthin (516 micrograms). 

Barret further identified the following health benefits of okra (ochro): helps prevents diabetes, helps with kidney disease, supports colon health, could help with respiratory issues like asthma, promotes healthy skin and promotes a healthy pregnancy.

In discussion with Trinbagonian women, the emphasis on the benefits of eating ochroes during pregnancy is advocated.  In further discussions with fellow Trinbagonians, I have also learnt of other health benefits from consuming ochroes and these include: preventing constipation, preventing muscle spasms, treating urinary problems and treating sore throat. 

It appears to be generally accepted that the ochro has a number of nutritional properties and health benefits.  Consequently, one could identify the ochro as a vegetable that would be very useful to consume because of its potential health and nutritional benefits. But I beg to differ.

In many Trinbagonian households, the culinary fare for lunch on Sundays usually includes callaloo while

coocoo was more of an incidental dish when the time warrants such.  It is important to know why I have included these two dishes in my discourse. To put it bluntly, I hate eating ochro in any way and/or form and I do not mean that I would eat it outside of the two dishes mentioned or if it is cooked a different way (e.g. fried). 

My Ochro Saga

My dislike for ochro rises to the point that I have never eaten callaloo or coocoo beyond an initial trial. I cannot tell when this dislike started but I know that it has been around since I was a child. In fact, I love cooked crabs and salted pigtails but if either meat was included in the callaloo, I would wash off all vestiges of the callaloo under running water before partaking of the crab or pigtail.

To the Trinbagonian culinary purists who are callaloo friendly, this would amount to a sacrilegious act because (as I have been told by many people on numerous occasions) it rendered the crab or pigtail somewhat tasteless. But this method of consumption was and still remains the only way I would partake of the added meats which traditionally accompany the cooking and eating of callaloo.

Another example of my relationship with the ochro involved my association with one of my mother’s version of cookup. According to Winer (2009), a cookup meal represented an impromptu or improvised dish, often consisting of rice and peas with bits of meat.

One of her versions of the dish included rice cooked with roasted saltfish striped into small pieces (or small pieces of chicken if that was available), onions, peas and finely chopped ochro which she fried before being added to the dish. This made the ochro easy to identify when the dish was completed.

While I loved my mother’s cooking and loved this particular dish, I would only partake after I had picked out and removed all vestiges of the ochro including seeds. My mother always commented that I was not hungry since I would take all that time to engage in the surgical removal of all semblance of the ochro before I ate.

It is not a surprise to state that I really had (and still have) a total distaste for callaloo and coocoo as they include ochro. This distaste has led to some of my friends questioning my claimed Trinbagonian heritage.  I still do not like to have boiled ochroes at the dinner table. In fact, as a young boy I planted a small kitchen garden which included peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. and interestingly I would also plant ochro because I considered it a product that required a minimum of time investment.

But my foray into the gardening project would also be a testament to my dislike of the plant.  I would take care of all the needs of the project in terms of dealing with the young plants before they began to bear fruit. However, when that time came, my mother would have to take over the gardening interaction with the ochro while I would tend to other vegetables.

Thus, to put it mildly, I hate the stuff. Did I say I hate the stuff?  As a friend of mine indicated, if I was sick

and eating ochroes was the only medical life saving intervention, I would surely die. Hopefully, modern technology would devise some level of intravenous injections of liquid ochro as a means of perfecting the ochro cure for yours truly so as to circumvent the act of eating in order to prolong life.

I honestly thought that I was about the only person who had this type of interesting association with the ochro. I travel frequently and I have developed a fondness for reading murder mysteries to help pass the time waiting for my mode of transportation.

During one such journey, I was engrossed in reading John Sandford’s book Golden Prey (2017) in which the main character Lucas Davenport who is a US Marshall stationed in Minneapolis, Minnesota is venturing into the southern part of the US (Tennessee) in search of a fugitive. He reports that he has to get used to the culture, attitudes towards cops and the food which he describes as strange. After his initial foray with okra (ochro) which he strikes off his menu of future possibilities (along with grits, collard greens and black-eyed peas), Lucas Davenport says the following: Who in God’s name was the first guy to stick an okra in his mouth? Must have been a brave man or starving to death. (p. 109). Now I know that I have a legitimate beef with the ochro when I am getting support for my stance from fictional characters in murder mystery novels.

When I think of my association with the ochro, I am reminded of the children’s volume Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (1960) where in a discussion of whether there is a love of Green Eggs and Ham by the character Sam-I-am. This volume was one of my

daughter’s favorite bedtime reading materials as a young child and she frequently requested this book to the point where I could recite the story verbatim using the book as a prop. 

In this volume, Sam-I-am describes his distaste for Green Eggs and Ham as follows:

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I do not like Green eggs and ham.

Would you like them here or there?

I would not like them here or there.

I would not like them anywhere.

I do not like green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am. (p. 12ff)

To further emphasize Sam-I-am’s disdain for Green Eggs and Ham, the narrative continues:

Would you eat them In a box?

Would you eat them With a fox?

Not in a box.

Not with a fox.

Not in a house.

Not with a mouse.

I would not eat them here or there.

I would not eat them anywhere.

I would not eat green eggs and ham.

I do not like them, Sam-I-am. (p. 22ff)

In the same vein as Sam-I-am, I could attest to the fact that I have a very negative relationship with the ochro whereby:

I will not eat it here

I will not eat it there

I will not eat it anywhere

In any shape, in any form

Or in any culinary concoction

My association with the ochro could be scrutinized from the point of view of the song War (1969) by Edwin Starr which was sung as a measure of protesting the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War.

War, huh, Yeah,

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

The substitution of the word ochro for the word war, represents my version of the protest song, a poignant indicator of my disdain for the vegetable.

Chapter 2

In Defense of the Ochro:

Ideological Statements by My Mother

Given my negative relationship with the dreaded ochro, the logical question to be answered revolves around why is this volume entitled: In Defense of the Ochro and what are these Ideological Statements by my Mother.

My recollections of my early association with ochroes and my mother’s statements came with the same understanding and response – I hated both. No need to say more about those ochroes but in the case of the parables/statements/value judgments espoused by my mother, let me help you understand my dislike for them.

I hated the fact that they were not explained despite the reality that they were referenced at every available opportunity. It was expected that I would quickly learn the correlation between those statements, my actions and the end results. If that correlation was not understood, I would usually suffer the consequences. This occurred over time so that I could eventually comprehend the complexities intertwined in her trend of thought before her sharing of the actual meaning.

To fully understand the complexities of these ideological statements, the cultural and social systems for child development in my era should be explained.

It was customary during those years as a boy and that of a youth, older members of the society bore the responsibility of directing one’s development with respect to the understanding and inculcating of value systems, morals, and a general sense of being a prosocial individual. The challenge was that they did not readily explain these issues of morality, social norms, cultural issues or the expected value systems by which you were expected to abide. What they would do however, is relegate the teaching aspects of any situation to some type of ideological statement, philosophical expose, expected truth, proverb or parable.

Consequently, one was left to glean an understanding of the assumed moral direction, value systems or societal expectations over time by remembering the context in which said statements/parables were used.  Inculcating the required memory and the appropriate response was very necessary, since an inappropriate response (which inferred a lack of memory or comprehension) was usually met with corporal or some other type of punishment which focused on increasing and improving your memory and/or comprehension.

Here is an apt example: if an older person (and I would use the phrase ‘older person’, ‘elder’ and ‘mother’ interchangeably because they all tended to act in the same way) wanted to warn one about the fact that certain actions could eventually lead to problems, the statement - what sweet in goat mouth does sour in the behind - would be made.  Interpreted loosely, this meant that the present action which appeared to bring favorable results would be followed by future negative consequences, BE FOREWARNED. As was previously indicated, these negative consequences usually meant some type of punishment.

Over time, one would realize the value of this statement. In other words, if you fail to choose your path carefully, your present actions would have negative consequences in the long term. In my mother’s case, this phrase was relegated to a précised version of What sweet in goat mouth. She assumed that the rest of the statement was known along with the implication of certain possible parental action.

These unexplained statements, parables, proverbs, value judgments and ideological positions were so frequently used, that it became very clear that whatever actions one was engaged in needed to cease since the ominous possibility of punishment loomed in the not too distant future. As time progressed, one would understand the correlation between the statement and expected action especially on mother’s part. 

It generally took many years before some of the philosophical nuances of these statements and the value systems were understood. Usually when they finally were understood, I was of the age when I could discuss same with my mother.

My mother also felt that her job with respect to my development was a particularly significant task. She always believed that I would seek to explore other parts of the world. As such, she needed to prepare me for any eventuality which would accompany my design for world exploration. Hence her need to provide me with her conceptualization of a system of social valuation.

As a means of comprehending my mother’s value system and in a retrospective analysis of my development, I have placed the two above-mentioned

concepts together: my initial questionable value of (a) the ochro and (b) my mother’s use of parables/statements/value judgments. 

I have come to understand, the ochro’s nutritional benefit along with its minimal cost which still remains a valuable asset for physical growth and development. In addition, I have eventually understood the value of the learning processes employed by my mother in her effort to ensure that I achieve a sense of comprehension vis-à-vis moral direction and social development.

The value system I gained was divinely crafted to define my future thinking and philosophical understanding of the life process. 

I have also come to understand the nutritional value of my mother’s statements which encompassed a tremendous amount of wealth which she gained through experience. These statements charted my life and allowed me to arrive at various philosophical positions with respect to the many paths one must follow on this journey of life.

When these statements are examined from a psychosocial perspective, the title Ideological Statements by my Mother is most appropriate.  That would not have mattered to my mother because (a) she would not have viewed her concept of life as an ideological treatise, and (b) she would not have accepted her ideas as ideological. Yet they pervaded her very existence and I could never evade them.

This volume represents the ideological position of a single mother as she sought to raise a son with the ever-daunting possibility that I could stray from the path she envisaged and become a problematic young male.  She

felt that her directional methods were useful.  But to maximize learning on my part, she needed to ensure that I made the necessary connections with respect to the values which she was trying to ensure that I received and understood.

I must add that this way of looking at the developmental paradigm was not relegated only to my situation but was prevalent as a general means of growth and development at the time. As a result, I am sure that many of my cohorts would understand the thinking associated with the topic of providing developmental lessons in parable form.

Thus, many persons in the Trinbagonian culture who experienced their childhood around the time of my development (in the 1950s and 1960s) could and would attest to the similarity of these experiences.

Chapter 3

My Psychologist, My Mother and Me

The four primary goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict and change behaviour. Long before I knew what psychology meant, my mother through her ideological statements described, predicted and was successful in changing my behaviour all without explanation. Looking back, I know now that she was my fist psychologist. Let me introduce you to my mother.

Her name was Girline Stewart, born in 1921 in a village near San Fernando, Trinidad. She eventually moved to a nearby town where she spent most of her adult life and died in 1999.  I had the honor of benefiting from her developmental processes and wisdom for almost 50 years. I called her Dar which I understand was my infantile variation of the word Ma and that name stuck.

I am a psychologist by profession, and I am what I am because she was who she was.  I am very proud of my professional designation, but I can only claim that designation as a result of applying my mother’s ideological position on many fronts. Somewhere along my developmental journey, I gained an understanding of the complex ideological system which was used to dispense social, emotional, moral and value knowledge structures. This understanding was gained as a result of (a) developing an ability to reason the efficacy of the judgments/statements/parables, and/or (b) the fear associated with the results which would accompany any exhibited lack of knowledge thereof.

The murkiness that initially accompanied these statements taught me how to interpret parables and statements, Additionally, a system of self-analysis which was ofttimes assisted by some level of punishment (corporal or otherwise) developed over time. Even the punishment concept was not immune to the parabolic translation. Consider the expression spare the rod and spoil the child which was heard with some level of frequency especially when a justification was needed for punishment.

What was even more interesting was that after a number of repetitions of the said parable or statement, its meaning became quite clear about the repercussions which would follow. This clarity concerning the expected actions was generally not tantamount to a clarity of comprehension of the nuances within the parable or statement. However, with age came the great eureka moments when the total ideological position was made clear.

In order to better understand and appreciate the impact that these statements had on my life, they are grouped under the following headings:

Understanding Life’s Direction

Friendships

Issue of Privacy & Confidentiality

Independence

Following Directions

Decision Making

The Household Hierarchy

Impact of Others on Your Life

Faith Analysis 

Defining the Growth Process

Each of her identified favourite statements will be accompanied by an explanation of its importance and consequently its teaching/learning process for myself.

It is important to remember that the identified explanation represented her thoughts on the matter since others may have had the same statements used with possibly different explanations and implications.

1. Understanding Life’s Direction

Having to raise as child as a single parent and to add to that fact, raising a male child, my mother sought to ensure that I understood my life’s direction as she identified it. Her expectation was predicated on a successful life endpoint while societal expectation for a male from a single female parent home did not necessarily share such a view.

As a result, many of her statements dealt with this subject. The following six statements were resolute of her position on my life’s direction.

A. As You Sow So Shall You Reap

In Trinidad & Tobago, this statement is akin to Newton’s third law of motion which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It generally signifies that the result of any action that one experiences is significantly tied to an initial action or series of actions.  As a result, one cannot expect a different result after promoting a specific action or set of actions.

I remember this statement very well. This one really had a big impact on my life and here is why. I was

successful at completing the Common Entrance

Examinations (the admission process from primary to secondary [high] school) and was allowed to attend the secondary school of my choice which was Naparima College. I must say that I had a good time for the five-year stint prior to writing my General Certificate Examinations (which determines the level of graduation from secondary school).

Unfortunately for me, having a good time during those five years meant that studying was relegated to a lower level of importance.  To put it bluntly, I had no identified life plan. Consequently, the results of my examination reflected my study pattern. I was successful in attaining only one subject when five subjects were necessary for employment and other upward mobility explorations.

My trip home with these results was a long and arduous journey.  Thoughts of retribution and retaliation from my mother for not maximizing her investment in my educational future consumed my mind. Why? My mother did not have the chance to attend secondary school. This was well known to me. As such, it was therefore expected that I would use this opportunity to its maximum.

On arriving home, my mother who was weeding in her garden, stopped and enquired of my results. When I informed her that I attained only one subject, she returned to her weeding and simply replied as follows:  As you sow so shall you reap. In other words, she understood that my lack of studying would not have resulted in miraculous successful results, no matter how much it was wished for or prayed for.

Her response was very confusing since I expected that she would be very angry after all her investment and effort at getting me through secondary school was unsuccessful and fruitless. More than that, it meant that my future educational progress was now stymied as a result of my lack of success.

I recalled that over the two or three months that followed, my confused state led the way to a level of cognitive equilibration. I figured it out. This result was of my doing and I was the only one who could change that outcome in the future. 

Later in life when I asked my mother to explain the statement and her reaction which left me in such a confused state, she indicated that getting angry would not have changed the result. The results reflected my input into the studying and examination process. She indicated that her only hope was that I would recognize that I was the only person who could change that result in the future. 

She then explained the statement that You cannot expect to reap peas when you plant corn. In other words, I could not ignore the studying process but still expect to be successful in the examination, no matter the level of prayers for divine intervention for a successful conclusion.

B. Listen Carefully To Everyone, You Might Learn Something

This phrase was generally used when I was getting older, particularly when I sought to exercise my developing sense of growth and influence as an emerging teenager and adolescent. This statement was

simply to be interpreted as follows: Pay attention to what is being said. You might benefit from the experience by learning something new.

What is interesting about this statement, is that as a child it appeared that it was purposely expounded as a unidirectional dictum.  Children were encouraged to listen carefully to information being provided. 

As a child in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Trinbagonian cultural mosaic held a predominant mantra of children being seen and not heard. This societal norm was important for one’s physical and emotional survival.

It was therefore quite commonplace that a child would have little to say in terms of adult interactions concerning any subject outside that which was requested of them. Thus, this supposed unidirectional dictum appeared contradictory in that the directive to listen carefully did not