Calabash (/ˈkæləbæʃ/;[2]Lagenaria siceraria), also known asbottle gourd,[3]white-flowered gourd,[4]long melon,birdhouse gourd,[5]New Guinea bean,New Guinea butter bean,Tasmania bean,[6] andopo squash, is avine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as avegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil,container, or amusical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh.
Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically calledcalabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course ofhuman migration,[7] or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (and existed in theNew World) during thePre-Columbian era.
There is sometimes confusion when discussing "calabash" because the name is shared with the unrelated calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), whose hard, hollow fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments.[8]
The English wordcalabash is loaned fromMiddle French:calebasse, which in turn derived fromSpanish:calabaza meaning gourd or pumpkin. The Spanish word is of pre-Roman origin. It comes from theIberian:calapaccu, from -cal which means house or shell. It is a doublet ofcarapace andgalapago.[9][10][11] The English word is cognate withCatalan:carabassa ("pumpkin; orange colour"),Galician:cabaza ("gourd, pumpkin, squash; calabash (container)"),Occitan:calebasso,carabasso,carbasso,Portuguese:cabaça ("gourd; calabash (container)") andSicilian:caravazza (andcaramazza).[citation needed]
The bottle gourd has been recovered from archaeological contexts in China and Japan dating to c. 8,000–9,000BP,[12] whereas in Africa, despite decades of high-quality archaeobotanical research, the earliest record of its occurrence remains the 1884 report of a bottle gourd being recovered from a 12th Dynasty tomb at Thebes dating to ca. 4,000 BP.[12] When considered together, the genetic and archaeological information points towardL. siceraria being independently brought under domestication first in Asia, and more than 4,000 years later, in Africa.[12]The bottle gourd is a commonlycultivated plant in tropical and subtropical areas of the world, and was eventually domesticated in southern Africa. Stands ofL. siceraria, which may be source plants and not merely domesticated stands, were reported in Zimbabwe in 2004.[13] This apparent wild plant produces thinner-walled fruit that, when dried, would not endure the rigors of use on long journeys as a water container. Today's gourd may owe its tough, waterproof wall toselection pressures over its long history ofdomestication.[14]
Gourds were cultivated in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas for thousands of years beforeColumbus' arrival to the Americas. Polynesian specimens of calabash were found to have genetic markers suggesting hybridization from Asian and American cultivars.[15] In Europe,[16]Walahfrid Strabo (808–849), abbot and poet fromReichenau and advisor to theCarolingian kings, discussed the gourd in hisHortulus as one of the 23 plants of an ideal garden.[17][18]
The mystery of the bottle gourd – namely that this African or Eurasian species was being grown in the Americas over 8,000 years ago[19] – comes from the difficulty in understanding how it arrived in the Americas. The bottle gourd was theorized to have drifted across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to South America, but in 2005 a group of researchers suggested that it may have been domesticated earlier than food crops and livestock and, like dogs, was brought into theNew World at the end of theice age by the native hunter-gathererPaleo-Indians, which they based on a study of the genetics of archaeological samples. This study purportedly showed that gourds in American archaeological finds were more closely related to Asian variants than to African ones.[7]
In 2014 this theory was repudiated based on a more thorough genetic study. Researchers more completely examined theplastid genomes of a broad sample of bottle gourds, and concluded that North and South American specimens were most closely related to wild African variants and could have drifted over the ocean several or many times, as long as 10,000 years ago.[20]
Bottle gourds are grown by direct sowing of seeds or transplanting 15- to 20-day-old seedlings. The plant prefers well-drained, moist, organic rich soil. It requires plenty of moisture in the growing season and a warm, sunny position, sheltered from the wind. It can be cultivated in small places such as in a pot, and allowed to spread on a trellis or roof. In rural areas, many houses with thatched roofs are covered with the gourd vines. Bottle gourds grow very rapidly and their stems can reach a length of 9 m in the summer, so they need a solid support along the stem if they are to climb a pole or trellis. If planted under a tall tree, the vine may grow up to the top of the tree. To obtain more fruit, farmers sometimes cut off the tip of the vine when it has grown to 6–8 feet in length. This forces the plant to produce side branches that will bear flowers and yield more fruit.
The plant produces night blooming white flowers. The male flowers have long peduncles and the females have short ones with an ovary in the shape of the fruit. Sometimes the female flowers drop off without growing into a gourd due to the failure of pollination if there is no night pollinator (probably a kind of moth) in the garden. Hand pollination can be used to solve the problem. Pollens are around 60 microns in length.
First crop is ready for harvest within two months; first flowers open in about 45 days from sowing. Each plant can yield 1 fruit per day for the next 45 days if enough nutrients are available.
Yield ranges from 35 to 40 tons/ha, per season of 3 months cycle.
Like other members of the familyCucurbitaceae, gourds containcucurbitacins that are known to becytotoxic at a high concentration. Thetetracyclictriterpenoid cucurbitacins present in fruits and vegetables of the cucumber family are responsible for the bitter taste, and could cause stomach ulcers. In extreme cases, people have died from drinking the juice of gourds.[21][22][23]The toxic cases are usually due to the gourd being used to make juice, which the drinkers described as being unusually bitter.[24] In three of the lethal cases, the victims were diabetics in their 50s and 60s.[24] In 2018, a healthy woman in her 40s was hospitalized for severe reactions after consuming the juice and died three days later from complications.[25]
The plant is not normally toxic when eaten. The excessively bitter (and toxic) gourds are due to improper storage (temperature swings or high temperature) and over-ripening.[24]
Boiled calabash is 95% water, 4%carbohydrates, 1%protein, and contains negligiblefat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), cooked calabash supplies a moderate amount ofvitamin C (10% of theDaily Value), with no othermicronutrients in significant amounts (table).
In Central America the seeds of the bottle gourd are toasted and ground with other ingredients (including rice, cinnamon, and allspice) to make one type of the drinkhorchata.
Traditionally in Korea, the inner flesh has been eaten asnamul vegetable and the outside cut in half to make bowls. Both fresh and dried flesh ofbak is used inKorean cuisine. Fresh calabash flesh, scraped out, seeded, salted and squeezed to draw out moisture, is calledbaksok. Scraped and sun-dried calabash flesh, calledbak-goji, is usually soaked before being stir-fried. Soakedbak-goji is often simmered in sauce or stir-fried before being added tojapchae andgimbap.[28][29] Sometimes uncooked rawbaksok is seasoned to makesaengchae.
In Burma, it is a popular fruit. The young leaves are also boiled and eaten with a spicy, fermented fish sauce. It can also be cut up, coated in batter and deep fried to makefritters, which are eaten with Burmesemohinga.
In the Philippines, calabash (known locally asupo) is commonly cooked in soup dishes liketinola. They are also common ingredients in noodle (pancit) dishes.
InVietnam, it is a very popular vegetable, commonly cooked in soup with shrimp, meatballs, clams, various fish likefreshwater catfish orsnakehead fish or crab. It is also commonly stir-fried with meat or seafood, or incorporated as an ingredient of ahotpot. It is also used as a medicine. Americans have called calabashes from Vietnam "opo squash".
An Indian calabashBengali dish made with the stems and leaves of a bottle gourd plant
A popular north Indian dish islauki chana, (chana dal and diced gourd in a semi-dry gravy). In the state ofMaharashtra in India, a similar preparation calleddudhi chana is popular. The skin of the vegetable is used in making a dry spicychutney preparation. It is consumed inAssam withfish curry, as boiled vegetablecurry and also fried with potato and tomatoes.Laukikheer (grated bottle gourd, sugar and milk preparation) is a dessert fromTelangana, usually prepared for festive occasions. In Andhra Pradesh it is calledsorakaya and is used to makesorakaya pulusu (with tamarind juice),sorakaya palakura (curry with milk and spices) andsorakaya pappu (withlentils).Lau chingri, a dish prepared with bottle gourd andprawn, is popular inWest Bengal.[30] The edible leaves and young stems of the plant are widely used inBengali cuisine. Although popularly calledlauki in Hindi in northern part of the country, it is also calledkaddu in certain parts of country like eastern India. (However, "kaddu" popularly translates to "pumpkin" in northern India.) It can be consumed as a dish with rice orroti for its medicinal benefits. In Gujarat, a traditional Gujarati savoury cake calledhandvo is made primarily using bottle gourd (in Gujarati,dudhi), sesame seeds, flour, and often lentils. In Karnataka, bottle gourd is calledSorekayi and is used to preparepalya (stir-fry) andSambaru (a south Indian stew). Also, crispysorekayi dosé (dosa) is one of the popular breakfasts in Karnataka.
In Sri Lanka, it is used in combination with rice to make a variety of milk rice, which is a popular dish in Sri Lanka. Different types of curries are also made using this, specially white curries with coconut milk.
In Southern Italy and Sicily, the variety Lagenaria siceraria var. longissima, called zucca da vino, zucca bottiglia, or cucuzza, is grown and used in soup or along with pasta.
In Sicily, mostly in the Palermo area, a traditional soup called "Minestra di Tenerumi" is made with the tender leaves of var. Longissima along with peeled tomato and garlic. The young leaves are themselves called "tenerumi", and Lagenaria in Sicily is cultivated both professionally and in home orchards mostly to use the leaves as a vegetable, the fruit being treated almost as a secondary product.[31]
Hollowed-out and dried calabashes are a very typical utensil in households across West Africa. They are used to clean rice, carry water, and as food containers. Smaller sizes are used as bowls to drinkpalm wine. Calabashes are used in making the West African instruments like theṢẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀, a Yoruba instrument similar to a maraca,kora (aharp-lute),xalam/ngoni (a lute) and thegoje (a traditional fiddle). They also serve as resonators underneath thebalafon (West Africanmarimba). The calabash is also used in making theshegureh (a Sierra Leonean women's rattle)[33] andbalangi (a Sierra Leonean type of balafon) musical instruments. Sometimes large calabashes are simply hollowed, dried and used as percussion instruments by striking them, especially byFulani,Songhai,Gur-speaking andHausa peoples. InNigeria the calabash has been used by some motorcyclists as an imitation helmet in an attempt to circumvent motorcycle helmet laws.[34] InSouth Africa it is commonly used as a drinking vessel and a vessel for carrying food by communities, such as theBapedi andAmaZulu. Erbore children of Ethiopia wear hats made from the calabash to protect them from the sun. South Africa'sFNB Stadium, which hosted the2010 FIFA World Cup, is known as The Calabash as its shape takes inspiration from the calabash. The calabash is also used in the manufacture ofpuppets.
Calabash also has a large cultural significance. In many African legends, Calabash (commonly referred to as gourds) are presented as a vessel for knowledge and wisdom.[35]
Thehúlu (葫芦/葫蘆), as the calabash is called inMandarin Chinese, is an ancient symbol for health. Hulu had fabled healing properties due to doctors in former times carrying medicine inside it. Thehulu was believed to absorb negative, earth-basedqi (energy) that would otherwise affect health, and is atraditional Chinese medicine cure. The bottle gourd is a symbol of theEight Immortals, and particularlyLi Tieguai, who is associated with medicine. Li Tieguai's gourd was said to carry medicine that could cure any illness and never emptied, which he dispensed to the poor and needy.[36][37] Some folk myths say the "gourd had spirals of smoke ascend from it, denoting his power of setting his spirit free from his body,"[38] and that it "served as a bedroom for the night..."[37] The gourd is also an attribute of the deityShouxing and a symbol of longevity.[39]
Dried calabash were also used as containers for liquids, often liquors or medicines. Calabash gourds were also grown in earthen molds to form different shapes with imprinted floral or arabesque designs. Molded gourds were also dried to housepet crickets. The texture of the gourd lends itself nicely to the sound of the insect, much like a musical instrument. The musical instrument,hulusi, is a kind of flute made from the gourd.[clarification needed]
In theSafaradi Jewish culture, the gourd is eaten duringRosh Hashana (Jewish New Year's Eve). According to the texts the gourd is eaten as a symbol of tearing apart the enemies who may come and attack. It is called Qaraa, which in Hebrew means "torn" קרע. "שיקרעו אויבנו מעלינו" meaning "may our enemies be torn apart over from us".[citation needed]
The plant is spread throughoutPolynesia known byhue in many related languages.[40]
InHawaii the word "calabash" refers to a large serving bowl, usually made from hardwood rather than from the calabash gourd, which is used on a buffet table or in the middle of the dining table. The use of the calabash in Hawaii has led to terms like "calabash family" or "calabash cousins", indicating an extended family grown up around shared meals and close friendships. This gourd is often dried when ripe and used as a percussion instrument called anipu heke (double gourd drum) or justIpu in contemporary and ancienthula.
TheMāori people ofNew Zealand grew several cultivars of calabash for particular uses likeipu kai cultivars as food containers andtahā wai cultivars as water gourds. They believed the gourd as a representation of Pū-tē-hue, one ofTāne (their god of forests)'s offspring.[41] Several types oftaonga pūoro (musical instruments) are made from gourds, including types of flute (ororuarangi, kōauau ponga ihu) and shakers (hue rarā, hue puruwai).[42]
The calabash is used as a resonator in many string instruments in India. Instruments that look like guitars are made of wood, but can have a calabash resonator at the end of the strings table, calledtoomba. Thesitar, thesurbahar, thetanpura (north of India,tambura south of India), may have atoomba. In some cases, thetoomba may not be functional, but if the instrument is large, it is retained because of its balance function, which is the case of theSaraswati veena. Other instruments likerudra veena andvichitra veena have two large calabash resonators at both ends of the strings table. The instrument, Gopichand used by the Baul singers of Bengal is made out of calabash. The practice is also common amongBuddhist andJain sages.[43]
Thesetoombas are made of dried calabash gourds, using special cultivars that were originally imported from Africa and Madagascar. They are mostly grown inBengal and nearMiraj,Maharashtra. These gourds are valuable items and they are carefully tended; for example, they are sometimes given injections to stop worms and insects from making holes in them while they are drying.
Sitar with resonator made from a bottle gourd.[44]Surbahar is similar but larger and with lower sounds (something like a basssitar)[45]
Saraswati veena, the calabash resonator is not always functional but it is kept in place because of the balancing effect.[46]
Rudra veena is a large pluckedstring instrument used inHindustani classical music. One of the major types ofveena played in Indian classical music, it has two calabash gourd resonators.[46] Thevichitra veena, also with two large resonators, is a similar instrument.
Ektara (one string) resonator made from a calabash gourd
Thetambura ortanpura may have atoomba (although not in this picture), a resonator made of calabash at the end of the strings table.[47]
Hindu ascetics (sadhu) traditionally use a dried gourd vessel called thekamandalu. The juice of a bottle gourd is considered to have medicinal properties and be very healthy (see juice toxicity above).
In parts of India a dried, unpunctured gourd is used as a float (calledsurai-kuduvai in Tamil) to help people learn to swim in rural areas.
In the Philippines, dried calabash gourds are one common material for making a traditionalsalakot hat.[48]
In 2012, Teófilo García ofAbra inLuzon, an expert artisan who makes theIlocanotamburaw variant using calabash, was awarded by theNational Commission for Culture and the Arts with the"Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan" (National Living Treasures Award). He was cited for his dedication to practising and teaching the craft as anintangible cultural heritage of the Philippines under the Traditional Craftsmanship category.[48]
In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil, calabash gourds are dried and carved intomates (from theQuichua wordmathi,[49] adopted into the Spanish language), the traditional container formate, the caffeinated, tea-like drink brewed from theyerba mate plant. In the region the beverage itself is calledmate as well as the calabash from which the drinking vessels are made. In Peru it is used in a popular practice for the making ofmate burilado; "burilado" is the technique adopted for decorating themate calabashes.
L. siceraria "mate" type
Calabash used as a container for drinkingmate with a metalbombilla
Mate carved and decorated as a drinking container (also calledmate, and the infusion also calledmate)
In Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador calabash gourds are used for medicinal purposes. TheInca culture applied symbols from folklore to gourds, this practice is still familiar and valued.
Calabash's watertight features allowed it to be often used as container to ship seeds across the translantic slave trade.[35] They were also used by enslaved people to carry seeds for planting on plantation fields.[35] On plantations that held enslaved African Americans, the Calabash symbolized freedom—as alluded to in the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" that referenced the Big Dipper constellation that was used to guide the Underground Railroad.[35]
The gourd can be dried and used to smoke pipetobacco. According to American consular reports from the early 20th century calabash pipes were commonly used in South Africa. Calabash was said to bestow a "special softness" of flavor that could not be duplicated by other materials. The lining was made ofmeerschaum, thoughtin was used for low-grade models.[50] A typical design yielded by this squash is recognized (theatrically) as the pipe ofSherlock Holmes, but the inventor of this character,Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, never mentioned Holmes using a calabash pipe. It was the preferred pipe for stage actors portraying Holmes, because they could balance this pipe better than other styles while delivering their lines.[citation needed]
The gourd is used traditionally to administerenemas. Along the upper Congo River an enema apparatus is made by making a hole in one end of the gourd for filling it, and using a resin to attach a hollow cane to the gourd's neck.[51]
^Jeong, Jaehoon (14 September 2016)."[정재훈의 밥상 공부] 광해군이 먹고 감탄해 벼슬까지 내린 잡채는?" [[Jeong Jaehoon's dining table study] What japchae impressed Gwanghaegun so much that he gave it a title of a public official?].ChosunBiz (in Korean). Retrieved15 December 2016.
^김, 민지 (14 March 2012)."냄비우동·박고지김밥…"5000원의 행복 맛보러 오세요"" [Naembi udong, bakgoji gimbap... "Come to taste the happiness of 5,000 won].Gyeongnam Domin Ilbo (in Korean).
^Puca, Davide (2019). "Che cos'è una minestra? Il sistema delle minestre siciliane" [What is a soup? The system of Sicilian soups].E/C (in Italian).27:1–11.hdl:10447/492973.
^Ho, Kwok Man (1990).The Eight Immortals of Taoism: Legends and Fables of Popular Taoism. Translated and edited by Joanne O'Brien. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 93–94.ISBN9780452010703.
^ab"Li T'ieh-kuai".Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Retrieved26 October 2008.
^Wilson, Eddie W. (April 1951). "The Gourd in Folk Symbolism".Western Folklore.10 (2):162–164.doi:10.2307/1497969.JSTOR1497969.
^abPeralta, Jesus T. (2013).Salakot and Other Headgear(PDF). National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) & Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP), UNESCO. p. 232. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 24 November 2021. Retrieved6 March 2020.
^Lara, Jesus (1971).Diccionario Qhëshwa—Castellano Castellano—Qhëshwa. Cochabamba: Editorial Los Amigos del Libro. p. 171.
^Julius Friedenwald and Samuel Morrison (January 1940). "The History of the Enema with Some Notes on Related Procedures (Part I)".Bulletin of the History of Medicine.8 (1):75–76.JSTOR44442727.
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![Sitar with resonator made from a bottle gourd.[44] Surbahar is similar but larger and with lower sounds (something like a bass sitar)[45]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSitar3.jpg)
![Saraswati veena, the calabash resonator is not always functional but it is kept in place because of the balancing effect.[46]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSrivani_veena.jpg)
![Rudra veena is a large plucked string instrument used in Hindustani classical music. One of the major types of veena played in Indian classical music, it has two calabash gourd resonators.[46] The vichitra veena, also with two large resonators, is a similar instrument.](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aAsad_Ali_Khan.jpg)
![The tambura or tanpura may have a toomba (although not in this picture), a resonator made of calabash at the end of the strings table.[47]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aShubha_Mudgal_in_playing_the_Tanpura_(2527339532).jpg)
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