Bob (this one) wrote:

> Here's the bizarre inconsistency - we want our food to be pretty,
> every pepper green, shiny, crisp and big, every carrot tapered, bright
> and heavy. No blemishes, no spots and it should sit unspoiled and
> unwilted in the refrigerator until we decide to use it, as though it
> came from some Henry Ford farm producing identically perfect tomatoes,
> matched melons and esthetically equal eggplants. And there should be no
> chemicals used to get there; no chemical fertilizers, no insecticides,
> no fungicides, no waxes to make it shiny, no gases in the boats or
> railroad cars from the fields to the stores.


A friend told me a story, possibly untrue, about his father the grocer
who, whenever he had over-ripe or imperfect produce, simply sold it by
putting a sign saying "organic" on top of it. This was many years ago
and before there was a legal definition for organic. At that time,
organic meant carbon-based so the signs were true. So if the bananas
were past prime, getting black, covered with fruit flies, and obviously
not selling, he'd dream up something like "Special New Zealand Organic
Zebra Bananas," and they'd fly out the door. That story, more than
anything else, brought home to me the truth about how consumers demand
perfect fruit unless they want chemical fertilizers, no insecticides and
no fungicides more.


--Lia