A revolution is about to see exotic Asian vegetables shift from market gardens on the fringes of Sydney to supermarket shelves.

The rise and rise of Asian cuisine together with Australians' readiness to adopt new styles of cooking means the Chinese and Vietnamese lunar new year, which begins on February 1, may belong as much to the hairy melon as to the goat.

And the bitter melon, sing qua, pennywort, Asian corn, sharp mint, Vietnamese and lemon basil, cloud ear fungus and much more.

If you thought a loofah was something you washed your back with and spaghetti melon some strange genetically modified Italian fruit, then think again, says food writer Carol Selva Rajah.

She has conducted food tours of Cabramatta for the past eight years and detects a change in attitude towards Chinese and South-East Asian herbs and vegetables. It's a grassroots revolution, because the huge range of exotic fare is largely ignored by the agricultural and culinary establishment, yet they are readily available in shops serving ethnic communities.

They are also grown locally, in market gardens that dot the outer edge of Sydney from Dural in the north-west to Kemps Creek in the south-west.

With statistics telling us that stir-fry is Australia's second most popular home dinner (after pasta) and that 70 per cent of the nation's kitchens have a wok, there is a certain inevitability about the increased use of Asian vegetables.

It's not so much a case of if, but of when, and that time, says Selva Rajah, is almost upon us.

"There's a curiosity and open-mindedness. I am very hopeful about this," she says.

The public interest has grown to a point where Selva Rajah published a book last year, Authentic Asian Ingredients. She predicts that South-East Asian vegetables are on the route to supermarket acceptance previously travelled by bok choy and lemongrass.

"They are all being grown here, but people don't know enough about them," Selva Rajah says.

"How can a group of Vietnamese farmers who work very hard with children helping, how can they market their produce?"

This has now become the job of the Vietnamese Growers' Association, headed by Hua Su. He represents about 50 Vietnamese market gardens on Sydney's fringe, which operated as individual entities until the association formed just over a year ago.

With working hours ranging from a winter minimum of 8am to 6pm, to a summer standard of 6am to 9pm, any marketing of their produce outside ethnic shops where they are recognised and accepted was nearly impossible.

"We can't grow a lot at the moment because we can't find the market," Su says. "Not many people know about Vietnamese food or produce."

An example of the embryonic state of the industry in Australia can be seen by the fact that Selva Rajah's book is already out of date, with new varieties of produce - many without English names - appearing at Cabramatta markets every spring.

One of those vegetables likely to become more common next year is Asian corn, a variety of maize common in Vietnam that is sweeter and milder than standard corn and is white.

There are 50 plants growing on a 2.8 hectare farm at Austral, west of Liverpool, owned by Van Ban Le, the treasurer of the growers' association.

Like most of the other 15 varieties of herbs and vegetables on the farm, the seeds are impossible to buy commercially, so this year's crop will provide seed for next year, when Le hopes to sell Asian corn in the markets.

The small scale, ad hoc nature of his operation - like almost all Vietnamese market gardeners - means they are largely ignored by supermarkets.

Selling is as simple as turning up to small shops in Bankstown, Auburn or Cabramatta and taking orders from individual shopkeepers.

There is, however, an expanding range of produce coming from north Queensland and the Northern Territory that is increasingly available at Flemington Markets.

Vietnamese community leader Thang Ngo is better placed than most to view the increasing acceptance of food from his former homeland because his diet has changed from frozen and tinned Vietnamese produce to fresh in the past five years.

"There has definitely been exponential growth of the number of vegetables and fruit grown locally, both here and in Queensland," he says.

They first appear in shops serving ethnic communities, before making it to specialist shops in areas such as Paddington or Glebe where "early adopters" who may have holidayed in South-East Asia start a trend.

From there it is only a matter of time before they are seen in suburban supermarkets, says Ngo, who predicts that one of the next big things will be dragon fruit, a spectacular bright red and green cactus fruit with white flesh and tiny black seeds that has now started to grow in Queensland after coming from Vietnam.

The process is aided by the dispersal of Vietnamese-Australians throughout Sydney and the reluctance of the Vietnamese community to buy goods from their former homeland because of continuing antipathy towards the Communist government.

If the farmers on Sydney's fringes do find their mainstream market in the near future, it will be at least partly thanks to the work of a University of Western Sydney academic, Dr Frances Parker.

Her first degree was in agriculture before turning to applied social science and the twin disciplines have left her uniquely qualified to work with Vietnamese and Cambodian market gardeners.

She believes that the long period from the early 1980s - where Vietnamese market gardeners worked in isolation, had little government support and supplied ethnic markets on a small scale - may be ending.

"Their value is now recognised on some levels, but there still needs to be implementation of programs on the ground to achieve their full potential," she says.

If more Asian vegetables do hit the mainstream, it will be not a moment too soon.

Threats to Sydney's market gardeners are numerous and include the gradual demise of the high-street greengrocer due to supermarkets and their demands for large quantities of produce and standard quality.

Perhaps the greatest threat, however, is the increasing pressure on land at Sydney's edges for housing, making it less economic to farm.

"There is an increasing recognition that living cities should be surrounded by farming land," she says. "It's not just about a few farmers surviving, but it's about what sort of city we want to become."

But Parker is optimistic that the entrepreneurial, gritty nature of the Vietnamese will ultimately triumph, as their activities become valued.