Food: A Love Story (12 page)

Let’s say I’m wrong. Maybe you do want to eat a vegetable. Let’s now subtract deep frying, vinegar, dairy, oil, or an unhealthy amount of salt from the vegetable. Do you still WANT the vegetable? If you say no, you are like me. If you said, “Yes, Jim, I love eating raw radishes by the handful,” you are a weirdo and probably need therapy. Okay, I’m jealous.

Mostly I’ve found that vegetables MUST be deep-fried, drowned in vinegar, or covered with some form of dairy or salt to have any appeal. Even at that point, the improvement
is very minimal. It’s staggering, the exertion that is put into making vegetables appealing. I’d like to applaud the effort behind grilled vegetables, but I’m pretty sure everyone finds them soggy and a waste of precious grill space.

At their best, vegetables are the sidekicks. The opening band you didn’t come to see at the concert. The asparagus next to the steak. The expectation is that the entrée is so good you won’t notice that you are eating mutant blades of grass. There is no better sidekick than the potato, mostly in deep-fried form. Even so, potatoes, like corn, are fake vegetables and a great excuse to your wife if you eat a lot of fries and tortillas: “I had
so
many veggies today, honey!”

The Vegetable Tray

Occasionally, raw, naked, unenhanced vegetables are shamelessly presented as if they are actually desirable. This is the case with the elaborate vegetable party tray. When you are at a party and there is a vegetable tray, aren’t you a little surprised? I always think,
Wow, that’s a waste of money.
A tray of vegetables at a party almost makes me sad. Here is a meticulously arranged tray of neatly cut vegetables for someone to throw out at the end of the night. I think
crudités
is a French term meaning “toss in le garbage at end of le party.” The only thing that raw vegetables have ever been good for is the careers of hummus and ranch dressing.

The vegetable tray reflects very poorly on the shortsighted host of the party you are attending. “Who is throwing this party? A nutritionist? Peter Rabbit? Is this a party or a Weight Watchers meeting?” You know they are just there for decoration. Who doesn’t want to look at pretty colors while scarfing down pigs in a blanket? But actually
eat
the raw vegetable decoration? Hell, I’d rather eat a candle. What, I’m the only
one here who eats the occasional candle at parties? Why do you think they’re scented?

I almost feel sorry for the vegetables on the tray. They don’t stand a chance against the other party appetizers. I know what it feels like to be the cauliflower next to the chips and guacamole. I’ve been to the beach and been the pale guy next to the tan bodybuilder. It’s not a good feeling.

CAULIFLOWER:
What the hell am I doing on this table? I can’t compete with a bowl of peanut-butter-filled pretzels! As if that ranch dressing is going to help sell me.

Some of us have to settle down with the ranch dressing. The usage is getting out of control. “I can’t help it. I love ranch dressing. I like to dip my pizza in ranch dressing.” That’s fine. You are just not allowed to vote anymore. Ranch dressing is rather pathetic, really—after all, it’s made from buttermilk and sadness. Prior to ranch dressing, nobody had ever eaten a raw vegetable. Throughout history, mankind has always known that vegetables were primarily put on this Earth for decoration.

FARMHAND:
Done with the harvest. Nobody is eating the Indian corn.

FARMER:
Feed it to the cows.

FARMHAND:
They didn’t want it either.

FARMER:
Throw it on the front porch next to the gourd and jack-o’-lantern and remind me not to grow it next year.

Types of Vegetables

A list of different types of vegetables reads like the roster of attendees at an international conference for the barely edibles.

Brussels Sprouts:
Clearly some kind of cruel joke by God.

Bell Pepper:
Probably what makes cooked bell peppers so special is that they can ruin the taste of any dish they are in. Green, red, yellow, or orange peppers—you can change the color, but when I see one, I prepare for disappointment. Green is by far the worst of the culprits. Green peppers can make the best steak bitter and a grown man cry.

Radish:
Interesting fact: No one has ever really wanted to eat more than one radish in a lifetime. Radishes are a fascinating example of how something can be both tasteless and burn your tongue at the same time.

Celery:
Celery better get buffalo wings a great holiday present every year.

Squash:
The name says it all. Pretty much the only thing that can squash my appetite.

Cauliflower:
The unpainted broccoli imposter.

Asparagus:
Most interesting thing about asparagus is how fast it makes your pee smell like asparagus.

Zucchini:
The cucumber’s ugly and disappointing cousin. (Similar to what the raisin cookie is to the chocolate chip cookie.)

Cucumber:
The cucumber is just a pickle before it started drinking.

Pickles and Hot Peppers

It seems whenever I identify a green vegetable I enjoy, it is a pickled vegetable or a hot pepper. Pickles are so good you’d think being “in a pickle” would be a good thing. Actually, a great thing. Pickles are delicious. Imagine a Cuban sandwich without the pickle. Wait, don’t do it. It’s a sad thought, actually. A Cuban sandwich without the pickle is just a ham-and-cheese sandwich with a slab of pork. Who would ever order
that
? Well, I guess I would, but I am a unique case.

If a pickle can define a meal, a hot pepper is there to overpower one. The hot pepper is the marching-band cymbal of vegetables. It’s like, “This is a pretty tasty sandwich—WOW, HOT PEPPER!” The super-hot-food thing is weird. It’s like, “Eat this thing that will burn off your nose hairs and kill all your taste buds to make the food better.” It’s surprising that we don’t put thumbtacks on our beds to enjoy our sleep more. But for me hot peppers are highly addictive.

I seem to have an abusive relationship with hot peppers. I probably need a support group. I know what they are going to do to me, yet I cannot resist them. At night I’m all “Yay, jalapeños!” The next morning I’m all “Boo, jalapeños!” Still, like a true codependent, I am the person who willingly keeps going back to the abusive relationship. I don’t want to give too much information, but they were probably eating jalapeños the night before writing the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire.” Still, I would much prefer to suffer the aftereffects of an exciting hot pepper than eat a boring vegetable. What am I, a monk?

As a society, I am sure we can all agree that vegetables should be removed from their classification as actual food. I am pretty confident that the food experts agree, because they are giving us subliminal anti-vegetable messages. For instance, remember that “healthy” food pyramid they used to show,
where the stuff you are not supposed to eat is in that tiny tip and the things that are good for you are at the bottom? I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I believe that the true purpose of that pyramid is to be a rating system for taste. It’s no surprise that the vegetables are the lowest on the scale. I think that the secret engineers of the food pyramid design are the Masons. They hate vegetables too, right? Let’s just admit the truth. After all, what is most people’s worst fear besides death? You got it: ending up a vegetable.

SALAD DAYS

As a young child I’d see people eating a salad and think,
They must be dying or, even worse, training for a marathon or something.
To me, salad eaters never seemed happy. I just didn’t understand the appeal. I still don’t. It’s a well-known fact that it’s impossible to have a good time when a salad is placed in front of you. Why would someone voluntarily eat lettuce? A salad is never anyone’s preferred choice. When a waiter asks, “Would you like a salad or fries with your cheeseburger?” does anyone actually say salad? Well, maybe some people say it, but no one actually
means
it. “Hmm, would I like to pretend to eat healthy, or would I like to enjoy my meal?”

Salads are good for you. We all know that. Yet, for having such a terrific health perception, eating a salad still feels like a surrender. Even when someone orders a salad at lunch, it’s presented as the decision of a martyr giving up their happiness to the waiter: “I’ll just have the salad.” Like they are part of a group escaping from prison, but they have fallen down and injured themselves. “No, go on without me. I’ll just slow you down.” Sure, a salad is a great way to eat greens, get roughage,
or re-create a lunch scene from
Sex and the City
. Possibly the most impressive thing about a salad is that you can eat tons and tons of it and never be satisfied. Salads are all about health. No one on death row is ordering a house salad as a last meal. If we found out salads were bad for us, would anyone ever eat another salad? I doubt we’d ever hear someone say, “I was so bad. I just had a salad.”

After I’ve eaten a salad I always feel I’ve earned something, like a meal, or at least maybe I’ve raised money to fight cancer. “I will finish this salad if you sponsor me for five dollars a leaf.” A salad for me takes so much effort. That’s why on the rare occasion I’ve had a salad as an entrée, I feel less like I’ve made a healthy choice and more that I’m being punished. Like I’m being sent to bed without a meal. I remember finishing my salad entrée only to realize:
That’s it? What a disappointment. I have nothing to look forward to.
This is not to say I don’t eat salads. I do. In fact, I had a salad as recently as 1995. Okay, fine. I have eaten salads. Whenever I get a steak, I always order a salad, thinking that will somehow balance it out:
Twenty pounds of meat, two leaves of lettuce. That should cover it.
I guess I do enjoy a salad every now and then. Well, I should say I enjoy salad dressing with just a touch of lettuce. I don’t even like lettuce on a cheeseburger. I need salad dressing. Without a heavy dose of salad dressing I feel like I’m eating a bag of yard work. Salad dressing is lettuce gravy. It’s there to mask the inadequacies. My salad dressing of choice has changed over my lifetime. As a child it seemed there were only the fake “ethnic” dressings: French, Italian, Russian, and, of course, Thousand Island (I still haven’t figured out where Thousand Island is on a map, but I think it may be in the South Pacific). Now there are innumerable dressings. I mostly enjoy blue cheese dressing because it invalidates any possible positive elements of a salad.

Unfortunately, salad dressing doesn’t seal the deal for making salads desirable. We’ve made every effort to make the salad easier to prepare and consume. There is the salad shooter, and for one second McDonald’s tried selling cups—yes, cups—of salad: “It’s salad you can eat while driving!” The salad people are desperately trying to make it easier for us to eat a salad. There are those prewashed, tossed bags of lettuce in grocery stores that you literally only need to add dressing to, and people still won’t eat them. I shudder to think how many landfills are piled with plastic bags of brown slimy lettuce leaves that have withered away, neglected in someone’s lower refrigerator drawer. But we still try and try to like salad. It is amazing the effort put into making lettuce or a salad appealing. We add nuts, dried fruit, and I’ve even seen marshmallows. All in a valiant effort to make salads, well,
not
salads. “Yeah, can I have some more cheese? Some bacon, and can you throw in a Snickers bar? Hey, instead of the lettuce, can I get French fries?” Whenever you go out to dinner, they always try to improve the salad through presentation. They bring it in like it has some kind of importance, when we all know it’s just the magazine that you read on the train before you reach your destination. But a magazine has more flavor. “Would you like some fresh pepper on your salad?” Can anyone really tell the difference between fresh and stale pepper? “Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t fresh pepper. I grew up on a pepper farm, and this is some stale-ass pepper.” I can’t even taste the pepper. They might as well ask if I’d like a wooden wand waved over my salad.

ME:
Uh, okay.

WAITER:
(
waving pepper grinder over salad
) La, la, la. Enjoy your magic salad.

ME:
I didn’t know I was getting a magic salad.

Occasionally, in fancy restaurants they will prepare the salad at your table. This ends up only being awkward because there really is nothing interesting about watching a salad being prepared. It’s like a bad magic show. But you have to be polite. “Oooooh, lettuce! Ooooh, oil and vinegar!” I never know what to say to the waiter while he’s making the salad. It feels rude to ignore them. “How long have you been in the salad biz?” “Nice wooden spoons.” “Oh, yeah, toss my salad!” I feel like some kind of dictator. I always assume people at other tables are judging me. “That guy is so controlling he’s having them make his salad in front of him.”