Holy vegetables?
Vegetables don’t seem able to do anything wrong at the moment. This Twitter queen and her followers expose a whole bunch of vegetables as holy vegetables: well-behaved on the outside, but sometimes downright devilish on the inside. And the unrest on her timeline continued for quite some time.
American Twitter queen Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) normally tweets about political issues, but when she was sautéing spinach last week, she used her Twitter account (111K followers) to express her displeasure with this “lying” vegetable. She tweeted photos of a huge pile of spinach that, after just a few minutes, was no more than a pathetic little heap—not nearly enough to reach your daily 250 grams of vegetables. Even though that’s what you imagine when you put the vegetable in your shopping basket. So she added this comment: ‘Is there a vegetable that’s a bigger liar than spinach?’
Free dental floss
This tweet struck a chord. For days, followers responded with their own hilarious examples of lying vegetables. Sometimes the lie is in the name, sometimes in the shape, and most often in the deceptive taste. From ‘sweet potato isn’t sweet, nor is it a f***ing potato!’ to ‘Iceberg lettuce, AKA 3-D water’. There were also positive comments, such as this one: ‘Celery is fine. Just water, neatly grouped into lines.’ And: ‘Celery doesn’t lie at all. It offers more than it lets on. It comes with free dental floss.’
Iceberg lettuce, AKA 3-D water
Brussels sprouts and especially trendy kale take the most flak. Here are five favorite comments:
1. Cauliflower: ‘Just racist broccoli.’
2. Coriander: ‘The devil’s herb. Pretends to be delicious parsley and stabs you in the back when you least expect it.’
3. This one has to remain in English for the pun: ‘Leeks. They don’t.’ (‘Leeks’ are leeks, but also the English conjugation of the verb to leak. And leeks don’t leak).
4. Kale: ‘Spinach with a bitter personality.’
5. Pizza: ‘Officially a vegetable according to the US Congress.’ (Really! Thanks to the fast-food lobby.)
We think Jerusalem artichoke is quite a liar ourselves. With a bit of imagination, its shape does resemble a pear, but its taste is anything but. And what about runner beans? Try as we might, we can’t detect any bacon flavor in them. And why do greengrocers often cut tubers into chip shapes in advance? You think you’re about to eat heavenly fries, but instead you bite into their devilishly bitter alter ego.
