Loofa (絲瓜) goes by many names and is probably best known in the west as the source of a natural sponge for use in bathing. In this incarnation it is commonly marketed as the “loofah,” the additional silent “h” in this context being added for reasons unknown. In Asia, it is widely appreciated as a highly nutritious vegetable that thrives during the hot summer months, but its lack of versatility in the kitchen has limited its appeal.
The loofa comes in two forms, one often called the ridged or angled gourd, a reference to the distinctive 10 ridges along its length. In Taiwan, this version is often regarded as a specialty of the Penghu archipelago, and while they are not exclusively grown there, they are most often simply called Penghu loofa (澎湖絲瓜). The more ubiquitous version has a tube-like appearance and is often called sponge gourd. It has a wider body than the ridged loofa and is the typed most often used in the manufacture of the bath sponge.
The Penghu loofa is prized for its firmer flesh, and this quality can really shine when used in a properly composed stir fry. Both ridged and smooth loofa can quickly be reduced to a horrendous-looking mush if not handled correctly. As this really does not go much beyond a careful eye on heat and cooking time, it is surprising how often loofa gets served up as unappealing slop even at quite good restaurants.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew
The flavor of the loofa is very delicate and is not at all easy to describe, balancing along a knife edge of bland sweetness with a hint of acrid sliminess that is best appreciated in loofa juice, a concoction to which Chinese medical lore attributes huge medical benefits, but in my view is a strong contender for the most vile vegetable health drink yet conceived — right up there with asparagus juice and Chinese mesona (仙草).
When cooked, its flavor can be quite pleasant, and in Taiwan it is often served together with clams, a combination that works remarkably well. The clams get to show off their full flavor with minimal interference from the accompanying vegetable, and the loofa enriches the broth with its sweetness.
In Southeast Asia, a common combination is to fry loofa together with egg, a dish which achieves a similar quality to that of Taiwan’s home cooking standard of fried egg and tomato (番茄炒蛋). Dishes such as this pack a huge nutritional punch, make a tasty meal with nothing more than the addition of white rice and have the advantage of being quick to make with cheap and easily available ingredients.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew
Loofa is widely used in India, but outside the subcontinent, all that is left after the stir fry is its incorporation into a quick loofa soup (see below). That said, its use within folk medicine is extensive. Primarily, it is widely lauded for its skin cleansing properties, with loofa sap earning the moniker of “water of beauty” (美人水). As a member of the cucurbits family and a relative of the cucumber and watermelon, it is no surprise that the loofa is also lauded as a “cooling” food, soothing the effects of Taiwan’s torrid summer and mitigating all manner of heat rashes and itchy fungal growth. Mitigating menstrual tension and facilitating lactation are also among its many benefits. Loofa is an excellent anti-inflammatory, so inevitably it is also said to be effective with everything from sore throats to cancer.
As with so many of these hardy vegetables, the list of health benefits goes on and on, and the only problem with loofa is finding ways to make it sufficiently varied to eat on a regular basis.
The loofa that we eat is the immature plant, and allowed to mature and dry out, what emerges is a network of xylem fibers that are a wonderful natural sponge. While they are marketed primarily for bathing and skin care in fancy skincare shops, their wide availability and relatively low cost in Taiwan means that they can be used in the kitchen as well. I have found them more effective even than expensive brand-name dish cleaning sponges and scourers, staying grease-free even when handling messy washing up. Just cut off a section from the long loofa and get washing.
So enjoy the plentiful supply of loofa at the moment, and if you get tired of eating them, you can always wait a bit until the plant matures and then use them to exfoliate in a completely natural way. What more could you ask of a vegetable?
Loofa soup
(Serves 2)
Loofa benefits from quick preparation and this one-pot wonder couldn’t be faster to throw together for a quick and remarkably satisfying light meal. You don’t even need stock for this soup, with water providing a more neutral canvas for the flavors of the loofa and tomatoes, which in turn give the liquid a creamy thickness. Use a light touch with the ginger and other seasonings and let the two main ingredients speak for themselves.
Ingredients:
1 large loofa
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Half an onion, finely chopped
A tiny nub of ginger, sliced thinly
1 clove garlic, mashed
1tsp sesame oil
1tsp olive oil
300ml of water
Pinch of white pepper
Pinch of salt
Pea seedlings (豌豆苗), optional
Preparation:
1. Cut away the skin of the loofa with a sharp knife then cut the flesh into equal bite-sized pieces.
2. Add the sesame oil and olive oil to a pot and warm. Add the onion and cook over medium heat until translucent.
3. Add the garlic and cherry tomatoes. Cook for a further 1 minute.
4. Add the thinly sliced ginger and loofa. Mix and cook for 1 minute then add water.
5. Bring to a boil and cook for a couple of minutes. The loofa should still retain its shape.
6. Serve immediately with a topping of pea seedlings.
Ian Bartholomew runs Ian’s Table, a small guesthouse in Hualien. He has lived in Taiwan for many years writing about the food scene and has decided that until you look at farming, you know nothing about the food you eat. He can be contacted at Hualien202@gmail.com.
Ajay Verma, a consultant gastroenterologist at Kettering general hospital in Northamptonshire, says our gut is a “complex machine.” “It is constantly providing us with the nutrition we need, initially to grow and develop, and then for us to survive, thrive and repair from injury and illness.” How can we keep it functioning well? Put simply: “Make sure what you put into it is balanced, and that you clear out its waste products adequately,” Verma says. “In a general gastroenterology clinic, the most common conditions we see are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease, inflammatory bowel disease and constipation,” says Nisha
The arithmetic is straightforward and uncomfortable. By the end of 2025, Taiwan had committed itself to a 50-30-20 electricity mix — half natural gas, 30 per cent coal, 20 per cent renewables. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’s (MOEA) own monthly energy reports tell a different story. Natural gas reached 47.8 per cent of generation last year. Coal stood at 35.4 per cent, comfortably above its target ceiling. Renewables came in at 13.1 per cent, well short of the 20 per cent Taipei had pledged a decade earlier. Installed renewable capacity reached roughly half of the 12 gigawatts (GW) the government
Last week US President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter whether he would speak on the phone to the President of Taiwan. “l’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody. We have that situation very well in hand,” Trump said. This marked the second time in a couple of weeks he had said he would talk to the President of Taiwan. In 2016 he famously took a call from then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), when he was president-elect. Despite warnings that the apocalypse was nigh because of a phone call, the world quickly forgot about the conversation between two democratically-elected presidents.
May 25 to May 31 Few believed that apples could be cultivated on a commercial scale in Taiwan’s high mountains. When horticulturalist Cheng Chao-hsiung (程兆熊) first proposed the idea in 1955, both American and Taiwanese colleagues dismissed it as implausible, arguing that temperate fruit could not be reliably grown on a subtropical island, especially on rugged terrain. However, it was this terrain in the Central Mountain Range where many Chinese Civil War veterans were resettled in the late 1950s. With limited job prospects and no family in Taiwan, they were placed on cooperative farms aimed toward self-sufficiency. Some say the conditions
RSS