Midin (Fern Tops)

Years ago most urban dwellers sneezed at the humble midin. It was a jungle vegetable. It was as freebie available on the fringes of suburbania and no man's land around the villages. Native women in sarongs plucked them. The jungle midin was well jungle food. I remember some of my uncles would say that when they were destitute during the Japanese Occupation they HAD to go to the jungle to look for free midin. So it was like a kind of vegetable for desperadoes. But I did like the soup they could make out of midin when I was young..the poor food gatherer's soup - midin floating in the bowl of hot blank gingery hot soup with a dash of red wine and some pepper!

Today the discerning and environmentally conscious foodies are keen on jungle and organic vegetables. One dish that has become very popular in Sarawak is the Midin or jungle fern. It is even the first dish many would request in a restaurant. Times have changed. People have changed.

My friend Yi Fang's mother moved into a house on the verge of the swampy jungle in Dong San Road many years ago. She found an unusual bush of midin growing outside her house. Ever since then this little bush has been giving them endless greens!! According to Yi Fang the more her mother plucks the midin the more the bush will grow....

It was a fortunate day for me for I have never seen the seed pods of the midin in my life!! Have you?

A beautiful "curl" of a young fern. Less than a day old.

A fern top popping through a fence.

Slightly more than a day old fern top

This is perhaps two days old

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More than three days old.

Young seeds popping up.

Red seed pods growing from a stem..amonst very old fern leaves.

And for this fern I can become a food gatherer any time.

p/s...there is a farm in Miri where some Foochows have experimented on growing midin and perhaps that will be another posting in the future!! So watch this space!