Vegetables Issue

Yesterday I went to the Farmer's Market: there were about seven stalls, two selling organic meat, two had vegetables, two bread and one was offering a selection of Middle Eastern soaps and creams. A shabby look was immediately apparent. As I approached the vegetable stand, I noticed that the produce was so covered in earth that everything was brown. The carrots were brown and so were the potatoes, beats and parsnips. We want food that looks ‘ugly’ and dirty as a guarantee of quality and I find this quite fascinating. Read more

CERAMIC VEGETABLES You can find ceramic vegetables form the sixties all over ebay and junk markets. Lately, with the increasing popularity of vintage they have become more expensive. But they are puzzling objects. Why on earth would I own and use salt and pepper shakers in the shape of pineapples? Surely it would make more sense to make pineapple-shaped vessels to store pinapple slices for example, or at least something fruity, just for the sake of categories. Yet, at the end of the day, I would be the first to buy them. Read more   FASHION VEGETABLES The legacy of Giuseppe Arcimboldo is everywhere and some of its most successful products are in fashion, from Elsa Schiapparelli, to Jean-Paul Gaultier and contemporary London based musician and dress-maker Rodnik Band. Elsa Schiapparelli in the tradition of her surreal contemporaries is the founder of the modern practice of adorning the body with the things you wouldn’t normally choose to dress yourself. Read more   FOODS OF THE WORLD I was born into this world hating vegetables. Like many kids, as soon as I developed some kind of awareness of the world around me, I hated any kind of vegetable but french fries. Then people around me told me that they were good for me. This implied a lot of unpleasant experiences: my mum forced me to eat them and the teacher at school wouldn’t let me go play until I finished my broccoli. Read more