In 2006, at the tender age of 26 (not yet woody), I experienced okra for the first time. I was at a roadside greasy spoon somewhere east of Clayton, Georgia. It was my first time in the United States, visiting an old friend, Snowy, from Wales. Snowy had been living and working in Greenville, South Carolina, for about five years. Practically a local, he pushed a bowl of fried okra toward me. “It’s a southern delicacy,” he said. Smiling. Snowy was having a joke. The grease from the okra saturated the greaseproof paper. The little round lumps looked like sections of wooden dowel, rolled in sawdust and deep-fried. The way Snowy was stifling a laugh; the way he wouldn’t take the first bite . . . Okra was not being taken seriously. It was slimy, greasy and tasteless and only good for playing tricks on tourists. I didn’t understand the slime at all. Undercooked egg whites, perhaps. Slug slime or the saliva from the mouth of an alien. The grease I knew well from back home. This was grease that had been used over and over. This was fast-food grease, cheap and nasty. And the taste? I remember none.
That was my first experience with okra, and I understand why some people never give it a second chance. Some people never give it a first one, such is its reputation. I can’t tell you how many people responded to the knowledge that I was writing a book on okra with, “Yuck! Okra,” or “Ewww, slimy.” In an episode of Good Eats dubbed “Okraphobia,” celebrity chef Alton Brown said, “If you don’t find a way to push past this slime business, you’re going to regret it.”