Last Saturday evening, I made fried okra for supper. Yes, fresh okra pods cut into coins, slathered in buttermilk, dredged in cornmeal, and fried in canola oil! Imagine this, from a person who uses olive oil for almost every other dish and rarely fries anything. Fried okra two or three times a summer is a special treat in our house. Okra is like licorice: people either love it or hate it. Those in the latter group dislike okra because of its sliminess when cooked or stewed in dishes like gumbos and soups. Okra also can be pickled, canned, or eaten raw. Leaves and flowers are edible, too. The slimy material is mucilage and contains soluble fiber. Deep fat frying or stir-frying minimize the mucilage, as does keeping the pods intact in cooking. Originating somewhere in North or East Africa, okra probably was brought to North America by enslaved Africans in the early 1800s, but had been noted in Brazil a century earlier. Okra is featured in African, Middle Eastern, North and South American...