Growing Chayote (Vegetable Pears): Dine Like An Aztec

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Chayote Harvests in Winter

Our vines were still loaded with fruit when the first frost hit. By the following morning the plants' luxuriant leaves were suddenly crumpled, and I thought it was the end of my first chayote crop. Not so! The remaining fruits hung in "cold storage" until I finally picked them. I found that they kept well (another definite advantage) when simply spread out on newspapers in the garage, and we were able to enjoy them until long after Christmas.

After the chayote had been harvested, I pulled down the vines and mulched the roots. (If your area's winters are fairly cold, you should mulch heavily.) The next year, new shoots popped up through the insulative layer and started the whole cycle all over again!

Maximino Martinez, author of the book Plantas Utiles de Mexico (Useful Plants of Mexico), says that after a vine is two years old, parts of the root can be harvested without killing the plant . . . since the belowground growth will then be very large and will have put out tubercles. If you cut some of these away, you should be able to garner even more food from your vines each year. The root is 20% high-quality starch, and is often used as a substitute for wheat products. (Chayote "potatoes" can also be peeled, boiled, steamed, or baked.)

The Many Culinary Uses of Chayote

There are a number of more exotic uses for chayote, as well. In the West Indies, for example, the vine's fibers are twined into strong ropes, and — in old-time Creole medicine — christophine herb tea was used as a curative for vascular diseases. (According to one botanist, "An infusion of leaves lowers blood pressure and is said to counteract arteriosclerosis with surprising results.")

Now I don't make rope very often, and I would surely hesitate to doctor a heart patient with chayote tea. But I have found that my two vines produce all the vegetable pears we can consume . . . with plenty left over to give away to friends and neighbors. And now that we've gotten our chayote garden started, our whole family is looking forward to many years of good eating!

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