KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Vegetables can be an afterthought.

Sometimes they feel like a requisite side dish, more of a duty than a pleasure. The main course ought to be the star, you say, the pièce de résistance.

Yet I find no reason why vegetables can’t have their moment in the limelight. Our parents remind us to eat our greens when we are young; as every passing year has shown, our progenitors are often wiser than we would like to admit.