We have all heard it. “You’re staying at the table ’til you finish your veggies!”\u00a0 Or, “I see that brussel sprout behind the mashed potato, young lady!”\u00a0Or, 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.” <\/p>\n
“Apatosaurus.”<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“Apatosaurus, Mom.\u00a0 They changed the name of Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus<\/em>.\u00a0 Othniel Marsh put the wrong head\u00a0on the mounted fossil skeleton in the Yale Peabody Museum and when they finally discovered the mistake they had to change the name.\u00a0 And it’s the Jurassic<\/em> and not the Triassic… and Tyrannosaurs didn’t arrive ’til the Cretaceous.\u00a0 And besides, nobody beat Rex.”<\/p>\n “Go to your room.”<\/p>\n So much for demonstrating superior knowledge at the dinner table.<\/p>\n Enjoying vegetables is unnatural… we all know it.\u00a0 It’s something we learn to do as adults, like driving cars, filling out tax forms & suppressing a fart in an elevator.<\/p>\n Look at our ancestors.\u00a0\u00a0Vegetables on their diet?\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 We killed our food… and before it was food, it walked, flew or swam.\u00a0 We rounded out a meal with nuts and fruit.\u00a0 That’s it.\u00a0 And that’s the way it stayed until we invented wine 7000 years ago.\u00a0 Our chemical make-up was meant to process meat and not greens!\u00a0 Vegetables?\u00a0 The animals we killed ate<\/em> the vegetables!\u00a0 That’s <\/em>how we got our vegetables!\u00a0 We let them eat it first!!<\/p>\n When Louis and Mary Leakey made their discovery of earliest human life in Olduvai Gorge, fossil evidence showed that Homo Erectus <\/em>dined on mammoth 2 million years ago.\u00a0 No evidence of vegetables… but<\/u><\/em> at the same level in the walls of the gorge —\u00a0tangerine seeds, apple cores & peach pit remains have been found.\u00a0 A cap from a G.I. issue canteen, also found,\u00a0has been discounted as a historical anomaly.<\/p>\n But let’s not kid ourselves.\u00a0 Vegetables have been around a long time, too.\u00a0 And they are here to stay… even for us “hunter-gatherers” (by the by, I do my hunting and gathering at Costco).\u00a0Culinary vegetables can come from any of the major plant parts: root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit or seed.\u00a0Here is a short list of the other <\/em>food.<\/p>\n Tomato.<\/u>\u00a0 Originally domesticated by the Maori of New Zealand.\u00a0 The great war leader Pomare was succeeded by the “peace chief” Heke,\u00a0who burned all weapons of war, turning spears into tomato staves.\u00a0 From then on, aggressive behavior was confined to throwing tomatoes at each other.\u00a0 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\u00a0a tomato.\u00a0 A hit from a tomato meant sure death.\u00a0 The Maoris were virtually wiped out.\u00a0 It is why today, no one from New Zealand would even think of looking at a tomato, let alone eating one.<\/p>\n Jicama.<\/u>\u00a0 Central American Natives would take this taproot and mash it up and\u00a0ferment it to create a highly intoxicating hallucinogenic pudding.\u00a0 It would be consumed on festival days, the celebrations sometimes lasting a week or more.\u00a0 When hardened, the pudding becomes a very reliable building paste.<\/p>\n Eggplant.<\/u>\u00a0 Known as “aubergine” in much of the world, it was produced solely for the attractive colour, feminine form\u00a0and beauty.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Royal Dye-masters were put to the task of replicating the unique colouring for the Empress’ cashmere shawls and flocked wallpapering.<\/p>\n Asparagus, Carrots, Celery & Pickled Cucumbers.<\/u>\u00a0 These vegetables were put on a restricted <\/em>list in Victorian England.\u00a0 Markets throughout the Empire had an “adults only” section that was curtained off from the central display area.\u00a0 The above mentioned vegetables\u00a0(referred to, in polite society, <\/em>as “unmentionables”),\u00a0along with\u00a0hot dogs, bananas, crullers and baguettes were discreetly\u00a0kept out of view and only sold in private…\u00a0And would never be consumed in public…\u00a0in polite society.<\/em><\/p>\n Radicchio.<\/u>\u00a0 Pliny the Elder wrote extensively of\u00a0radicchio’s medicinal properties in his Naturalos Historia.\u00a0 <\/em>Radicchio was good for treating heart ailments, swollen joints, hearing loss, insomnia, erectile dysfunction & athletes foot.\u00a0 Some of the side effects could be hair loss,\u00a0sustained headaches, uncontrolled sweating, painful gas & permanent loose bowel movement.<\/p>\n West Indian Gherkin.<\/u> This small relation to the cucumber was appreciated by the Caribe Tribe for its fertility properties.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Gefilte Fish.<\/u>\u00a0 Long associated with Jewish people, who would take great satisfaction in knowing that there was in fact no fish called a gefilte fish.\u00a0 <\/em>The word “gefilte” is derived from a German word that meant “stuffed”.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 This is not the case.\u00a0 The origin of this dish goes back to France circa 1000 AD, where it was known as faux poisson.<\/em> It was in fact a combination of chopped parsnip, rutabaga and horseradish.\u00a0 Crusaders traveling from France brought this dish with them as they made their way across Europe to rescue Jerusalem from the Infidel.\u00a0 In Central and Eastern Europe the name evolved into gefilte.\u00a0 <\/em>The fact that this is a vegetable dish has been an culinary insider’s\u00a0 joke <\/em>for centuries.<\/p>\n Strawberry Twizzlers (re-classification from USDA pending).<\/u>\u00a0 Finally!\u00a0 A vegetable that us hunter-gatherers can finally enjoy with gusto!\u00a0 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<\/em>!\u00a0 I’ll have another helping of Twizzlers please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have all heard it. “You’re staying at the table ’til you finish your veggies!”\u00a0 Or, “I see that brussel sprout behind the mashed potato, young lady!”\u00a0Or, if you were lucky you were subjected to greater artifice and creativity… “Look, … Continue reading