Marie Taylor, Ink

I was walking through the produce section of my neighborhood grocery store feeling that delectable combination of smugness and virtue. Was I not overhauling my eating regimen, pulling exotic recipes from long neglected tomes, washing out vegetable drawers in the refrigerator, and hanging long braids of garlic from a nail?

Yes, I reflected with satisfaction as I delicately pinched a particularly plump tomato, I was changing my ways, taking to the high road of health, eschewing (which is like chewing but without teeth) the bloody fare I had so long embraced. I was turning my affectionate eye upon the leafier members of nature; to whit, I had determined to eat more vegetables whether I liked it or not.

It is thus that I begin my story, a story that imparts the fruits of hard-won wisdom. The turning point, so to speak, the “Eureka!” of my morning meander, came when a small boy turned to his mother and said, “What’s that?” and pointed to a large purple item resembling a bowling pin. “An eggplant,” she replied, hefting a bag of potatoes into her cart. “Does it lay eggs?” the young boy said, eyes wide with wonderment.

It was Paul on the road to Damascus all over again! When my mind stopped spinning and my sight returned, I was staggered by his deductive reasoning. I reviewed the implications of his innocent observation. Anyone who is at all interested as I am in the study and history of words will see that the road I was taking did not lead to Syria.

Etymologically speaking (which is like epistemology but without all the facts) this was an actual ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg’ scenario.

Why was a purple vegetable shaped like a bowling pin called an eggplant? Did eggplants cause chickens to lay bigger eggs? And were they purple? Did chickens really lay eggs at all – or did they secretly grow them behind the hen house in the dark of the moon? I reeled!

Being of a philosophical turn of mind, that conundrum led me to other immediate observations and syllabic acrobatics. For instance, was spinach so named because it induced a twirling reaction when placed in the mouths of small children? Is there a correlation between cheerleaders and rutabagas – or was that Winnebagoes?

Does eating squash lead to the desire to step on ants? Do peas really make you snap? Did eating cantaloupes reduce nocturnal flits to Niagara Falls? Did tangerines really cause people to digress from the beaten path? What part did asparagus play in the recent rise of Asperger’s Syndrome?

One after the other these alarming and as yet unanswerable questions swirled through my impressionable mind. I mopped my brow and leaned heavily on the shopping cart as my knees began to wobble. No wonder vegetarians were so strong and healthy. They had to be to withstand and vanquish this onslaught of associative thinking.

I staggered to the next counter where a pyramid of Jerusalem Artichokes rose like the Eifel Tower. Another puzzling vegetable! How do you cook something that looks like a hand grenade; and how do you know when it’s done? I carefully picked up a plump one and pondered the words “Jerusalem Artichoke.”

Was this green globe I held in my hand, Orthodox or Reformed? Did I have to be Jewish to eat it? And if I did eat it, might I have a shift of faith, an epiphany that would rock my Catholic upbringing? Would I develop a taste for kosher dills or lox and bagels? Or even worse, start watching old Jerry Lewis movies?

As these and other thoughts rushed through my mind, I must admit to a certain hesitation and my hand did tremble slightly. Calling upon my inner Amazon, I thrust the artichoke in my basket and scurried home (which is like hurrying only lower). As I pulled into the driveway I thought, “today, artichokes, tomorrow Brussels sprouts” – and then the whole Jewish question will be set aside for a Flemish conundrum.