Today I was admiring the variety of buttery yellows in the sweet corn I was about to eat when it occurred to me that once upon a time foods inspired Crayola colors, not the other way around.
I purchased the corn yesterday from a farmer’s market near the Exchange Church in Uptown. At one stand filled with particularly beautiful organic vegetables I spent some time admiring the bell peppers, painted in dark greens and purples. The farmer addressed the four-year-old standing next to me, “Have you ever seen a purple pepper?” The pepper was more beautiful than any of the coloring book peppers the four-year-old and I are accustomed to seeing at Cub.
When did we turn into Queens of Hearts, desiring all of our gastronomical pleasures to come in Red no. 40 and Yellow no. 5 ? (The most notorious example is the orange – until I went to Mexico it never occurred to me that our oranges are so abnormally orange. In Mexico they are yellow and green and they taste like they were made by God.)
I purchased the corn yesterday from a farmer’s market near the Exchange Church in Uptown. At one stand filled with particularly beautiful organic vegetables I spent some time admiring the bell peppers, painted in dark greens and purples. The farmer addressed the four-year-old standing next to me, “Have you ever seen a purple pepper?” The pepper was more beautiful than any of the coloring book peppers the four-year-old and I are accustomed to seeing at Cub.
When did we turn into Queens of Hearts, desiring all of our gastronomical pleasures to come in Red no. 40 and Yellow no. 5 ? (The most notorious example is the orange – until I went to Mexico it never occurred to me that our oranges are so abnormally orange. In Mexico they are yellow and green and they taste like they were made by God.)
I’ve been reading about the speedway to extinction for heirloom seeds and livestock and about the traumatic effects that extinction will have on our palates and health in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I would like to add one more traumatic effect and that is the loss of color. As the daughter of an artist - a person who finds more value in a purple onion as a painting subject than as a food - it depresses me to think that someday I might be telling my grandchildren mythical tales of enchanted vegetables painted in every color.
*To Liza, Alice, and Weezie: I promise not to speak another peep on the subject of the book until book club meets and we can discuss it together. Who’s bringing the Bass Lake cheese?
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