Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Evil Fruition

Some fruits are evil.

Frankly, it's upsetting because I don't expect this of them. Vegetables? Evil. This doesn't shock me, I've grown up with this knowledge. They seem to fit the bill for wickedness. They don't look good, they don't taste good, but the world thrusts them upon you and tells you you must have them. They cause you pain AND, if you're not very careful, the people you love and trust most will betray you by bringing their sordid filth into your homes. (Loving wife, with your pureed cauliflower in my nacho cheese -- I'm looking at you.)

On a side note, there are vegetables I do like. Namely corn and potatoes. I think that's it. Then the US Department of Agriculture starts actin' a fool. Corn and potatoes aren't vegetables? They're starches? As if your moving bacon from a meat to a fat wasn't betrayal enough. When I'm playing Scattergories, and someone rolls a P, and I see 'Vegetable' on that list, you better believe I'm writing 'pureed potato pie," because that's worth 3 points. Really though, I'm not astonished. After all, this makes all vegetables 'undesirables' for me, though I tolerate some, to please my eternal companion.

Back to the fruits.

Suspect #1 - La Tomate

The tomato is probably the most evil of all fruit. I don't want to close that door just yet, but, hey, I'm just sayin'. Besides it's similarity to America's greatest nazi enemy, as well as it's propensity to mutate into homicidal maniacs, the thing is just gross.
Fruits are supposed to be sweet. Everyone knows it. This is why you put fruits in ice cream, make fruit sorbets, and have fruit's and cream, or chopped preserved fruits on top of your cereal, or put small fruits in your pancake. I might just vomit, because I just thought of tomatoes in a pancake, tomatoes on my cereal, or worse yet, a tomato sorbet.
Adding to its strikes, this little red devil isn't even sure it's a fruit. Maybe it's a vegetable. Maybe it's some weird hybrid. Personally, I think it's probably a vegetable disguised as a fruit. That would make the most sense, considering it's at the top of my evil fruit list.
Tomato, you have only one redeeming quality, and that is that we can kill you, crush you, mash you up until you're no longer recognizable, then by diluting you down with sugar, salt, water, oil, and a few other choice ingredients, we can get ketchup, salsa, or spaghetti sauce. (No I'm not going to call it tomato sauce, I refuse to honor you like that.)
So as far as I'm concerned, ship 'em off to Mr. Heinz and let him have his way with 'em, in 57 different varieties. They deserve everything we can dish out.

Suspect #2 - Honeydew Melon

I don't think there's any such thing as a fruit that sounds more heavenly than honeydew melon. I hear that, and I'm thinking: this is going to be epic. The most famous melon of all has taught me that melons are wonderful things, and then you've thrown in words like honey (which makes me think of one of my favorite bears [there are lots of them]  and awesome cereals at the same time) and dew, which feels good rolling off my tongue. Why, then, do I put you in my mouth expecting magic every time, but am routinely dissapointed? Some type of pavlovian learning should have occurred, but I suppose your promise is just so good, you fool me into hoping it will come true. Habitually.
Ultimately, Ms Honeydew Melon, your middle name is deception. Like the pizza you were planning on having for lunch that turned out to be covered in green mold, or the empty milk carton you discover the morning after buying your favorite sugary cereal, the crushing blow you deal to my hope is the Waterloo of my appetite.
Honeydew Melon, thanks for nothing. Like a bad girlfriend, you make me think I like you, then show me why I shouldn't.

Suspect #3 - Nanners

"Hold on!" you cry out, "Bananas?!" Yes, my friends, bananas. You might think you like bananas, but if you're like me and what I suspect to be all other sane people, you don't actually like bananas -- you like isoamyl acetate. This little wonder produces that fantastic banana smell and taste, which I adore in runts, muffins, and ice cream.  If isoamyl acetate is the banana flavor, what then does the banana provide? Nothing. It is a gooey mess.
Unlike other fruits which are good to be eaten, like apples, watermelon, strawberries, etc., bananas are ugly and mushy. This is why we give them to little children, because they are not far removed from baby food. Similar to the honeydew that's not enough dew and no honey at all, the banana has tricked us into being it's friend. With it's chicanery on national television, the banana has fooled us into believing that we like it. How many people really want to just pick up a banana and eat it?
Not many.
The ways in which I like the banana flavor - the unsung hero isoamyl acetate - are many, but on it's own, just put that thing in my mouth and chew? I'll save it for the Donkeys. Donkeys, Kong.

In summary, vegetables are mostly evil, and they kicked out the ones that were good. Meanwhile fruit are generally good, but the evil ones need to be dealt with.
Qui moi? Well, none of this has much bearing on what I'm having for dinner tonight.

2 comments:

  1. You have clearly never had a fresh banana. I am with you 100% on every other point, and also with bananas when they're not fresh. But if you have a perfectly ripe, unbruised, beautifully yellow banana, it has that lovely banana flavor and it's not mushy and gross at all. It's firm and subtle and pleasant. I usually eat at least 2 a week and my hubby eats one every day. Because we go through so many so quickly we always have fairly fresh, if not perfectly fresh, bananas on hand. Once they get remotely brown they go immediately into the freezer for banana bread, though. I currently have enough for about 4 or 5 batches. I should get on that...

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  2. Taylor,
    It's not just honeydews. Melons and cantaloupes (which are spelled terribly) are all evil, with the exception of watermelons. The sweetness of our kind ally, the watermelon, is all the more accentuated by the fact that their former allies (the other melons) are pure, unabashed evil. They put you in salads, they put you in mixed "fruit", but you're never good, other melons. You literally hurt my mouth to eat. Definition number one of good food? Food that doesn't hurt your mouth when you try to eat it. If it hurts it's trying to tell you something - not to eat it. That little rule of thumb has served me well on metal and blackberry branches, and I think it works well for melons.

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