We have all heard it. “You’re staying at the table ’til you finish your veggies!” Or, “I see that brussel sprout behind the mashed potato, young lady!” Or, if you were lucky you were subjected to greater artifice and creativity… “Look, why don’t you pretend that the broccoli is a tree from the Triassic, and that you are a Brontosaurus eating 100lbs of nourishing greens to get strength to beat Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“Apatosaurus.”
“What?”
“Apatosaurus, Mom. They changed the name of Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus. Othniel Marsh put the wrong head on the mounted fossil skeleton in the Yale Peabody Museum and when they finally discovered the mistake they had to change the name. And it’s the Jurassic and not the Triassic… and Tyrannosaurs didn’t arrive ’til the Cretaceous. And besides, nobody beat Rex.”
“Go to your room.”
So much for demonstrating superior knowledge at the dinner table.
Enjoying vegetables is unnatural… we all know it. It’s something we learn to do as adults, like driving cars, filling out tax forms & suppressing a fart in an elevator.
Look at our ancestors. Vegetables on their diet? I don’t think so. We killed our food… and before it was food, it walked, flew or swam. We rounded out a meal with nuts and fruit. That’s it. And that’s the way it stayed until we invented wine 7000 years ago. Our chemical make-up was meant to process meat and not greens! Vegetables? The animals we killed ate the vegetables! That’s how we got our vegetables! We let them eat it first!!
When Louis and Mary Leakey made their discovery of earliest human life in Olduvai Gorge, fossil evidence showed that Homo Erectus dined on mammoth 2 million years ago. No evidence of vegetables… but at the same level in the walls of the gorge — tangerine seeds, apple cores & peach pit remains have been found. A cap from a G.I. issue canteen, also found, has been discounted as a historical anomaly.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Vegetables have been around a long time, too. And they are here to stay… even for us “hunter-gatherers” (by the by, I do my hunting and gathering at Costco). Culinary vegetables can come from any of the major plant parts: root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit or seed. Here is a short list of the other food.
Tomato. Originally domesticated by the Maori of New Zealand. The great war leader Pomare was succeeded by the “peace chief” Heke, who burned all weapons of war, turning spears into tomato staves. From then on, aggressive behavior was confined to throwing tomatoes at each other. This worked for hundreds of years, until the competing Titore tribe found the way to extract the highly toxic blood of the blister beetle, which would then be spread on a tomato. A hit from a tomato meant sure death. The Maoris were virtually wiped out. It is why today, no one from New Zealand would even think of looking at a tomato, let alone eating one.
Jicama. Central American Natives would take this taproot and mash it up and ferment it to create a highly intoxicating hallucinogenic pudding. It would be consumed on festival days, the celebrations sometimes lasting a week or more. When hardened, the pudding becomes a very reliable building paste.
Eggplant. Known as “aubergine” in much of the world, it was produced solely for the attractive colour, feminine form and beauty. Princess Eugenie of France loved to look at decorative arrangements of eggplants and made sure there were eggplants in every room of the Palace in Versailles. Royal Dye-masters were put to the task of replicating the unique colouring for the Empress’ cashmere shawls and flocked wallpapering.
Asparagus, Carrots, Celery & Pickled Cucumbers. These vegetables were put on a restricted list in Victorian England. Markets throughout the Empire had an “adults only” section that was curtained off from the central display area. The above mentioned vegetables (referred to, in polite society, as “unmentionables”), along with hot dogs, bananas, crullers and baguettes were discreetly kept out of view and only sold in private… And would never be consumed in public… in polite society.
Radicchio. Pliny the Elder wrote extensively of radicchio’s medicinal properties in his Naturalos Historia. Radicchio was good for treating heart ailments, swollen joints, hearing loss, insomnia, erectile dysfunction & athletes foot. Some of the side effects could be hair loss, sustained headaches, uncontrolled sweating, painful gas & permanent loose bowel movement.
West Indian Gherkin. This small relation to the cucumber was appreciated by the Caribe Tribe for its fertility properties. When ripe the gherkin was first peeled, then cut in vertical strips, dipped in the urine of the sacred goat, grilled on a stick, and then while still hot placed on the forehead of newlywed brides on their wedding evening.
Gefilte Fish. Long associated with Jewish people, who would take great satisfaction in knowing that there was in fact no fish called a gefilte fish. The word “gefilte” is derived from a German word that meant “stuffed”. Some assume that this “delicacy” is a combination of three different fish: pike, white and carp… chopped and formed into a large irregularly shaped “fish meatball.” This is not the case. The origin of this dish goes back to France circa 1000 AD, where it was known as faux poisson. It was in fact a combination of chopped parsnip, rutabaga and horseradish. Crusaders traveling from France brought this dish with them as they made their way across Europe to rescue Jerusalem from the Infidel. In Central and Eastern Europe the name evolved into gefilte. The fact that this is a vegetable dish has been an culinary insider’s joke for centuries.
Strawberry Twizzlers (re-classification from USDA pending). Finally! A vegetable that us hunter-gatherers can finally enjoy with gusto! And you nay-sayers who raise an eyebrow because the maker of Twizzlers is a wholly owned subsidiary of Haliburton with ties to the present Administration… well, T for tough! I’ll have another helping of Twizzlers please.