Thursday, June 14, 2007

mushmouth

I don’t know exactly when but at some point about twenty years ago, fruit began scaring the hell out of me. That is, it stopped tasting like fruit but became some kind of polyurethane, styrofoamy fake slobber that was mostly water and texture. Bad texture. Mealy apples. Rough and porous peaches. Cantaloupes like rubber. And dry oranges that fell apart in my mouth. Like most people, I always loved fruit – real fruit. Flavorful, in-season fruit. Now, anticipating some horrible surprise. I’m afraid to even buy it. You really can’t tell by looking anymore. Everything looks perfect. This applies to vegetables, too, for example, hothouse tomatoes, which exist just to give your greens some red contrast. If I were a photographer who ate cardboard, things would be fine. The only vegetable that seems to have fallen off agri-science’s radar screen is the lowly and unsexy radish. They’re still crunchy, and now inconsolably lonely.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean, melons and strawberries are the worst. I'm still grieving for the tomatoes too, and my heart goes out to all those inconsolable radishes.

I hear your pain buddies--come here and rest awhile on my plate.

Andrew Shields said...

Check where the stuff comes from, and when you buy it. The local strawberries here in Basel are superb right now -- but they were bland two weeks ago and will be bland again two weeks from now.

SarahJane said...

aww dave, you are sweet. don't worry about those radishes though. they are lonely, but have kept their integrity.

what is a bit ironic is that in order to get to one of the best organic markets in-n-around frankfurt, you have to drive. but i don't drive, so i pretty much have to take what the nearby markets offer me. which isn't always good, in fact, usually not. it's depressing, especially in summer.

Valerie Loveland said...

I am really picky about fruit.

I stopped eating sugar recently, and all sorts of stuff that I'd liked before seem weird to me now. The main change is I used to love catsup and use it on everything. Now it seems sticky, and I don't know, orange-flavored. Weird.

michi said...

the strawberries they sell at little stands across the city, fresh from lower austria or burgenland, are delicious! :)

but i hear you. i hear you. they seem to have taken the melon out of watermelon, for example.

i miss our balcony. we had our own tomatoes, radishes, carrots and some spices last year. sigh. i love those radishes, btw. bread & butter with radishes, simple but sooo nice.

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