Forbidden Fruit

My traumatic relationship with vegetables 
had its origin in my early childhood, 
beginning with turnips, parsnips, and beet tops
and continuing on through vegetables A ~ Z.

The clean your plate rule did not help.

 

An Array of Vegetables

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vegetables_%284700705569%29.jpg

However, one of my great aunts 
had a vegetable she forbade us to eat, 
a vegetable she said was worth its weight in gold.  
I would look at the hard-to-find green ovoid 
and wonder Why?

One summer day Aunt Nan invited me for lunch.
Friends of hers were visiting from New York City,
and guests from NYC usually meant
this curious vegetable would show up 
as a gift for Aunt Nan.

So, dressed in my best, 
I arrived for lunch at her beautifully appointed table
in the dining room overlooking 
the blue Annapolis Basin and Digby Gut.

Digby Gut and the Annapolis Basin

Things progressed well  
until Aunt Nan placed chilled luncheon plates 
in front of her guests and me.
Top points for presentation!
Top points for shock value!

My life flashed before my eyes;
not my life in vegetables,
my life in cows.

Suddenly I was in Robinson's pasture
again, with my younger brother Roy.
Seven and six, 
we loved to cut through that 
pasture between the brook and Robinson's 
to terrify ourselves with their cow, Molly.

We were continually grossed out 
by Molly chewing her cud 
with that great, slimy, tongue
pushing the grass around,
as her lower jaw worked in tireless circles
against her upper.

Cow Chewing Cud

(Not Molly)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cud-chewing_cow,_south_of_Ferny_Knap_Inclosure,_New_Forest_-_geograph.org.uk_-_563528.jpg

Knowing that that grass had been
regurgitated from Molly's
four compartment stomach
gave us a frisson of horror
at the grossness of it all.

(Click the above link if you would like to know more
about cows' stomachs and chewing cud.)

We would sneak closer and closer,
until Molly stopped chewing 
and stared at us with baleful eyes.
Time to beat a hasty retreat!

My Brother Roy and I

Post Molly Days

The summer day I flashed on
was some years past;
before Uncle Cecil had retired, 
before he and Aunt Nan had returned from NYC 
to Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, 
before they had built a home by the beach 
and across the brook from the Robinson place.

Uncle Cecil's and Aunt Nan's House

This day, Molly had a new calf named Daisy,
and Daisy was the cutest thing on four feet.
Roy and I snuck into the pasture with
tufts of grass to feed Daisy
(not realizing that she only drank milk).

Molly did not turn baleful eyes on us.
She charged!

I hightailed it across the pasture
to the edge where it dropped off 
to the cobbled beach below.
Roy followed on pudgy legs.

I lept and landed hard on the rocks.
Roy froze at the edge,
squealing with fear,
as Molly closed in!

"Jump!  Jump!  
She's going to hook you!  
Jump!"
I screamed.

To this day I can see those horns
as Molly tossed her head for Roy!
It was as if she had shoveled him off the edge!
A hair's width from the tips of her horns,
Roy plunged to the rocky beach.

Molly stood at the top of the high bank 
mooing and glaring, 
while we examined our scrapes and blossoming bruises.
I had split open my right leg from ankle to knee,
but a chubbier Roy was in better shape.

We hobbled up the beach,
shakily climbed the steep, rickety stairs 
up the high bank
to the Robinson place,
and slunk past the pasture. 
Molly kept pace with us the whole way.
Daisy never looked so cute again!

The Beach Below Aunt Nan's Home

Looking Toward the Old Robinson Place

The stairs leading up the bank were located
between the big rocks in the green patch in the middle distance.

"You cooked a tongue, a cow's tongue?"
I blurted out, 
looking at Aunt Nan in horror.

Too Scary to Enlarge!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beef_tongue_preparation.jpg

"Yes," she said, 
in a voice as chilly as the plates,
"Beef tongue in aspic."

(Click the above link for a recipe.)


Aunt Nan passed around a plate
overlaid with slices of 
a buttery, light green vegetable
fragrant with lime.

"You may have some avocado."
she said, 
"But only if you absolutely love it.
It's worth its weight in gold."

I passed on the avocado
and forced down the jellied tongue
between bits of potato salad.
Never again!

Years later, while working in Newfoundland
on a fluorspar project,
I chanced on a coupon in a magazine.
I could mail it to California,
and the California Avocado Advisory Board
would send me a pamphlet on avocados,
complete with recipes.
It was an offer too good to pass up.
I would finally get the lowdown 
on this exotic vegetable 
that Aunt Nan used to hoard.

I am telling you:
vegetables are trouble,
even if they are fruit!

Avocados

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guacamole_IMGP1256.jpg

Within a year of receiving 
that avocado pamphlet in the mail,
I was living in California,
married to a country and blues singing,
paralyzed, 101st Airborne, Screaming Eagle vet
learning a whole lot about
life, trouble, and avocados.

Avocados

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Avocado_IMGP1117.jpg