arval or Patal, as it is sometimes also referred to as, is a common green vegetable that most if not all folks from India are familiar with. I looked around on the web and there seems to be a lot of confusion on its english name so I would rather not mention any here. It is especially common in northern and eastern part of the country and definitely well loved in the region in India where I come from. Growing up parval used to be abundant during the summers. So much so that it almost became a staple for those couple of months. It would either be aloo-parval with rice for lunch or parval bhunjiya with roti for dinner or even sauteed stuffed parval as a side, it would show up in some shape or form with every meal. You got tired of eating it eventually but you still liked it.Coming to the US, I was pretty disappointed that folks here did not even know what parval was let alone eat it or even sell it. I would occasionally find the frozen kind in the freezer, tried a few times, but was even more disappointed. For someone trying parval for the first time, I would strongly advise not trying the frozen ones, not even close. We had to go without the fresh ones for a few years until we started seeing it in little containers in Indian grocery stores, tucked away in a corner as if it were an orphan vegetable that no one desired. The first time I laid my eyes on the little box in the corner seemed like a distant dream. I picked one up and held it close to my eyes turning it in different directions until my senses told me I was in fact looking at a fresh parval (aah the things you take for granted). The excitement however was short lived as almost immediately my sight fell on the little handwritten price tag that read $6.99/lb. "You gotta be kidding me", I thought and with a heavy heart put the one I had in my hand back in the basket and passed it by. Yes, I did turn around.
Since then I do buy a couple of pounds every now and then and handle it like gold. Hubs and I both enjoy it with rice or roti while chatting through our meal on everything I just wrote above.
