The Vegetable Museum

If art is a way of defamiliarizing the world, of bringing our attention to dwell on the strangeness of certain objects, thoughts, or actions, then vegetables, in their innate weirdness, are a natural medium for this kind of aesthetic reflection. (The ghosts of Russian Formalism and Viktor Shklovsky are nodding their spectral heads in approval as I type.)

When our Veg-on-the-Street correspondent, Endive Haricot, forwarded me a link to The Vegetable Museum, the vegetable art project of Beijing artist Ju Duoqui, I immediately recognized in her a kindred spirit, though one far more skilled than I in the art of wielding the vegetable. Parents teach their children not to play with their food, but Duoqui's work recovers the secret bounty that is lost when vegetables are reduced to mere vehicles of nutrition.

After shelling several kilograms of peas to make herself an entire pea-lady outfit two summers ago, Ju Duoqui decided to get even wackier and reconstruct classics of Western art via the wide world of vegetables (the tofu Mona Lisa, a leeky Van Gogh, Klimt's naughty kiss between radishes, begging the question: where's the beet?!). Of the tableau above, Liberty Leading the Vegetables (the inspiration is Eugène Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple) the artist writes:

Against that fiery fried-egg backdrop, this woman who emanates onion smells from her breast and carries a spring onion spear in her left hand and a wood ear flag in her right, draped in a tofu skin robe, leads the vegetable people forward. The yam soldiers, with their bewildering little round eyes raise a cabbage banner. Having figured out what moving forward means, have they lost their momentum? Each of the potato-head soldiers has a different expression, not sure of their bearing, perhaps surprised, but that is definitely a completely unadorned potato. You wouldn’t know them any better if they were chopped into French fries and covered in ketchup, but when placed in the picture, they all appear unfamiliar and rich in facial expression.

How well do we really know our vegetables, regardless of the form they take? I am particularly taken with the line: "this woman who emanates onion smells from her breast." Think of it, the onion body from which flow the tangible traces of courage and hope. Maybe that Obama onion wasn't so random after all...

Another vegetable piece of Ju Duoqui's that I am fond of is The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Pickled Cabbage, which is a lumpy revision of Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolas Tulp:

And here's a saucy little Tim Burton-style potato 'n' lettuce Napoleon:

Dig the little eggplant shoe and the cilantro cravat. All photos and the artist's statement are taken from the Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, where even more vegetable masterpieces await your perusal.

Frozen vegetable grill party

I believe I can say with little to no controversy that French Canadians are the champions of weird, in particular that kind of weird that makes one laugh abruptly but with a glib embarrassment and bewildered shaking of the head on behalf of all parties involved. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Arctic Gardens, the company that produced the kooky dancing vegetable music video posted below, resides in Quebec and Ontario. Its tagline, "Arctic Gardens captures the freshness," could almost pass for standard English and yet has that twinge of a Mentos accent (captures the freshness of what?) that gives it away as somehow Other.

The video appears to be part of an advertising campaign for Grill Champions, a frozen yet "tasty mix of vegetables ready for the barbecue," according to the product website. You should experience this musical event for yourself, but I will say that its irresistible tackiness falls somewhere between ABBA and Ace of Base, both of whom I adore with a guilty passion. I find the video fascinating yet terrifying, kind of like The Shining, partly because the refrain (also the song title) has vegetable people with bloated white Mickey Mouse hands beckoning to you and calling out "Come play with me!" which recalls those freaky red-headed twins murmuring "Come play with us" to little Danny.

The video's other disturbing element is the vegetable violence. It's as if Arctic Gardens is trying to macho up the image of vegetables, so that grilling veggies seems just as He-Man an act as slapping some tri-tip on the coals. Not only does the pea-pod rapper with pom-pom pea buttons get the carrot-tomato babe in the frozen food aisle, the young 'n' frisky veggie partiers also amuse themselves by blasting bell peppers into smithereens with a baseball bat. There's something unsettling about watching giant vegetables with human faces barbecue and devour tiny versions of themselves while singing and smiling. The Arctic Gardens website underscores this vegetable aggression with its graphic of the Grill Champions package wedged between a man's clenched fist and meaty bicep. Eat your veggies or be a sissy! GRRRR!

Your vegetables aren't that weird

"I read through weird vegetables.... I like reading your entries. You guys write about vegetables that i don't find very weird..."

Ouch. That's the sting of gloves being smacked across our collective blog face as guerrilla vegetarian chef Leif Hedendal throws down the gauntlet.

To be fair, that last sentence ends, "but i have such a skewed sense of produce," so he admits that his métier brings him into closer contact with a whole variety of veggies that the average civilian cutting board doesn't encounter. And I guess if you're the closest thing to a walking, talking, anthropomorphic weird vegetable, disguised in a beard and plaid shirt, then I'd imagine you might be a little picky about whom you accept into your clan.

My initial response:

"Our idea of 'weird' is for people who live on Trader Joe's baby carrots and who buy boxes of cherry tomatoes in December, like my mom but also me two years ago, people who kind of get in a rut of cooking the same veggies over and over. But really, fennel is a strange strange creature no matter how well you get to know it."

Upon further reflection, I realized that a bunch of our posts are just about produce in general, weird or not, and began to feel a little glum about not living up to the full potential of our blog name--until my friend Jennifer made the startling yet undeniable observation that, "All vegetables are pretty weird if you think about it."

It's true. So, in a series of soul-searching discussions over treats at Tartine, coffee at Atlas Cafe, and in the Valencia St. bike lane, Erin and I have decided not only to seek out weirder vegetables but also to further probe the hidden strangeness of those vegetables we think we already know. And now that we have the added powers of Leif integrated into our growing Voltron assemblage, our weird vegetable quotient can only multiply exponentially.

To get us all reoriented, I wanted to leave you with some choice entries on the notion of weirdness from the Oxford English Dictionary:

weird, a.
1. Having the power to control the fate or destiny of human beings, etc.; later, claiming the supernatural power of dealing with fate or destiny.
Originally in the Weird Sisters = (a) the Fates; (b) the witches in Macbeth.

2. a. Partaking of or suggestive of the supernatural; of a mysterious or unearthly character; unaccountably or uncomfortably strange; uncanny.

b. of sounds or voices. [I don't know how this relates to vegetables yet, but it does explain the "weirding module" in David Lynch's Dune.]

4. a. Out of the ordinary course, strange, unusual; hence, odd, fantastic. (Freq. in recent use.)
b. Colloq. phr. weird and wonderful, marvellous in a strange or eccentric way; both remarkable and peculiar or unfathomable; exotic, outlandish. Freq. ironical or derog.

I am particularly intrigued by the idea of vegetables having supernatural powers, kind of like that creepy mandrake root baby creature in Pan's Labyrinth. And just when you thought peas were the same ol' ho-hum, they turn up in the entry for the verb "weird." Yes, the verb:

weird, v.
3. To warn or advise by the knowledge of coming fate.

1806 JAMIESON Pop. Ballads I. 237, I wierd ye, gangna there! Ibid. II. 174, I weird thee, to lat me be were best.

Hence weirded ppl. a.; weirding vbl. n. in Comb. weirding peas, peas employed in divination.

Note: The anatomically correct carrot (front and back shot) is from this blog. The googly-eyed produce are entries in Amy Sedaris' googly-eye craft challenge.

A Morning Poem

O little pea shoot! Sweet herald of spring, Sprig of green sunshine, Glorious phantom of the garden, I welcome you into this world! I squeeze your fat belly Caress your bulging forehead Pinch your plump bottom One, two, three peas! Bashfully, you flutter your tendrils, And I pluck you away From this dusty world; Into my mouth You go! Pop!

Can you tell I've been reading Robert Hass's orgasmic nature poetry? His recent book, Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005, is a beauty both inside and out.

I woke up this morning with a vision of the pea shoots I cultivated last spring in a window box when I had lots more free time than I do now but still thought myself way too busy. I bought this "icebreaker" pea plant as an experiment from Cole Hardware. I probably harvested 4 or 5 pea pods, which I think means I could have tended them better. But they were delicious. This plant originally came from the Sweetwater Nursery in Sebastopol (Sonoma County). I hope to start from seeds one day.

Let them eat broccoli cake!

In the years since high school, my friend and former French-class petite copine Gabby Parker has blossomed into the Bay Area cake madame Gabrielle Feuersinger, with her own company Cake Coquette. One of her specialties is cake sculpture, and many a customer has requested veggie-shaped cakes. I am particularly impressed with her dedication to verisimilitude with the above broccoli cake, going so far as to include the occasional brown streak, as well as those pesky little leaflets that I always peel off the stalk.

I pondered the possible motivations behind requesting an otherwise standard, non-veggie cake that only looks like a vegetable and came up with the following:

1. Cake disguised as broccoli creates the illusion that people are taking in less calories and more calcium than they actually are, hence enhancing that "good-times" feeling at any party

2. To evoke that two-birds-in-one satisfaction of finishing one's veggies and earning the right to have dessert at the same time

3. To trick the alternative hippie kids into eating cake instead of veggies?

4. To remind people of what they should really be taking into their bodies instead of cake, which is actually nothing but tons of sugar and eggs, thus leaving more cake for you (this works in opposition to #1, 2, and 3, being only effective if the health-nut level in the room is particularly intense)

5. Because cakes-as-vegetables are weird, and hence kind of cute and funny in the same way that those Winnie-the-Pooh cell phone charms that have Pooh dressed as Piglet, Tigger, or a bee hive are kind of weird, cute, and funny all rolled into one squeezable rubber package.

Feel free to coo your little heart out over the pea pod - yes, Gabby/Gabrielle made it for a baby shower. The pumpkin was a popular Halloween special. Check out her cake gallery for more sculpture and wedding cakes. I am now on the lookout for cakes actually made out of vegetables besides just carrots...