Creeps Come in Pairs

"The better to see you with, my dear," say the pattypan squash eyes.

I got these at the Tomatero Organic Growers stand at the Noe Valley farmers' market back in the early fall (I pulled these photos out of the Weird Veg archival crisper).

"And the better to bear our appalling decrepitude together," say the jujubes, which were crisply sweet but strangely spongy yet stiff to chew when I ate them, also back in September.

Yes, these are jujubes, or Chinese dates, not to be confused with Jujubes the candy, which are actually made from potato starch, but were originally made from a mysterious vegetable-based gum called ju-ju gum (I can't get a satisfying answer on what exactly this "ju-ju gum" is or was, and the Internet stories of a tropical berry have clearly not been properly fact checked, so if anyone has more legit info, drop it in the comments section). While Jujubes come in nondescript thimble form, Jujyfruits actually make the effort to look like real produce, including asparagus, pea pod, and tomato shapes, which have zero relation to the fruit flavors that their colors represent. This well-written candyblog entry has everything you should know about these two kinds of candy.

Now it's up to you to decide which is the good juju and which the bad juju. More on juju magic here.