Okra is thought to have originated near the equator in Africa. It has been cultivated in the area that includes present-day Ethiopia and the eastern portion of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan for a long time.
It eventually made its way into northern Africa, the Mediterranean and India before its journey across the Atlantic to the New World.
Enslaved Africans brought okra to the Americans during the year of the West African slave trade. The captive Africans in the 1600s secreted okra seeds in their hair or inside their ears during the long journey to America.
Okra found exceptionally popularity in New Orleans. Enslaved Africans used the young okra, which contains the vegetable mucilage, to eat by boiling.
The leaves were also used medicinally to soften a cataplasm, and seeds were used on the plantations of South Carolina to make a coffee substitute.
In Asia, according to the book named Zhou Li, okra was used as sacrificial food to ancestors and Gods.
History of Okra
