12 August 2006

Small is beautiful

Visit a vegetable show - there’s bound to be one near you soon - and you will see trestle tables piled high with artfully arranged presentation produce. Perfect, un-nibbled cabbages, uniformly conical carrots and aubergines polished to a high mirror shine await inspection while their growers stand protectively nearby. I don’t know if anyone who enters competitions like this grows their veg organically, but it is difficult to produce such regular and unblemished crops without recourse to non-organic means.

But what really saddens me about these events is the emphasis on big: radishes like bullseyes; potatoes like boulders; pumpkins that would have made Cinderella a stretch limousine, never mind a carriage. I’ve seen onions so large they made my eyes water without cutting into them.

What is this obsession with size? Besides the obvious. For a bit of fun, or for a good cause, fair enough. But there seems to be an idea across the board at these events that big is good. Certainly, that’s not the only criterion, but it seems to be one of the most important. If you can grow it big then you know your stuff. I grew an enormous courgette or two this year and trust me, I certainly do not know my stuff!

Where is the interest in taste? Enormous vegetables just don’t taste nearly as good as small ones, do they? Picked young, french beans have the most intense flavour. And small potatoes, steamed with their skins intact have got to be one of the most delicious vegetables there is.

So, pick ‘em young and eat ‘em small. If anyone can translate that into latin for me I’ll have it as my site motto.

Filed under: Harvest — Clare @ 1:02 pm