Crazy vegetables

This is going to be a real grump session, for I believe that the stuff we buy is sometimes rather dodgy.

1: Red Onions: Have you noticed how in the past five years or so, most of the red onions are now “presented” in a peeled format? All the outer layers of the onion have been removed to make the onion look gorgeous and red. The world, these days, seems to be all about what you look like; it’s all about the presentation, rather than common sense or practicality. God put all those layers on an onion to protect them from environmental degradation due to fungi and bacteria, so that the bulb stays in perfect condition for a long time. And to present them peeled will undoubtedly add to the cost of producing them – now guess who pays for that as well?

2: Grapefruit: When it comes to identifying the varieties of produce in – say – a supermarket, there is often a lot of hit-and-miss going on. Grapefruit are usually only described in terms of their general colour and their country of origin; If you are looking for the “New Zealand Grapefruit” (which is a yummy variety!), you’re out of luck because most NZ-grown grapefruit varieties (Golden Special or Morrison Seedless) will get that name on their label in the supermarket. It’s all about botanical literacy, but that’s gone out of the window a long time ago!

3: Spuds: The bins of potatoes in my supermarket are just the pits – really! I’m a fan of Agria, great roasting spuds and they make fabulous olive-oil baked chips too. If you are lucky you can buy the small “new potatoes” correctly labelled in terms of variety. It’s on their box, usually. But when you dive into a larger bin of potatoes you have a few choices: Washed potatoes, brushed potatoes, dirty potatoes, or red potatoes. Excuse me? If you ask what the variety is most employees have no idea what’s what. I particularly dis-like the term dirty potatoes. I expect this is a name invented by a totally non-vegetable-literate marketing “expert”, but the label seems quite incongruous with that noble art of marketing: calling it a dirty potato makes it not clean.

Moreover, New Zealanders have this crazy habit of calling soil “dirt”, which is one of the biggest insults to the thin outer layer of our planet that grows all the greenery we need, supports billions of microbes and tiny invertebrates that create the fertility on which we so depend.

Besides, a layer of soil around a potato reduces the amount of sunlight that hits the skin; it stops the tuber from going green! I’ll have a non-washed Agria potato any day. If we are serious about creating Nature-Literate New Zealanders who understand the concept of species and food varieties we’ll have to start that process by actually correctly naming the varieties we sell in our shops.

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