We need more square fruits and vegetables.
This revelation came about because a co-worker was describing in detail how he prepares a pineapple, complete with vigorous chopping motions. He also attempted to describe how to get the good bits off a mango, but was unable to adequately convey what must be done.
I presume I will never know and thus will die a horrible, slow death when I’m trapped in a pit full of mangos with a knife and no clue how to prepare them.
“A tragic waste,” one of the men who find me will say.
“If only he’d known,” another will say.
“Yes. If he’d just pulled on the door instead of pushing, he’d have easily gotten out.”
“Dibs on his shoes.”
Anyhow, the whole ‘square fruit and vegetable’ idea occurred to me because, as my coworker put it ‘round things are a bitch to chop up.’ At which point, I suggested that we make a square pineapple, which would make it much easier to skin and core.
Now, I realize this idea is not new. The Japanese have been growing square watermelons for years. I’m not exactly sure why. Presumably, they intend to build houses out of them.
NOTE: It would be so cool if they made watermelons in other configurations, such as an ‘L’ shape, an ‘I’ shape, and an ‘S’ shape. Then you could play watermelon Tetris.
Square fruits and vegetables would have so many advantages over the traditional shapes. They would be easier to stack, easier to peel, and they wouldn’t roll away in comedic fashion when they fell out of your grocery bag and you tried to pick them up. Man, if I had a dime for all the times that’s happened to me.
Actually, that’s never happened to me, so yeah. The stacking and peeling thing still stands though.
Cheers,
-Jason
5 comments:
It would certainly make things easier when you're making sandwiches. Maybe the Japanese make very big watermelon sandwiches? Or lots of sandwiches at once? It'd be more efficient than dealing with circular fruit & veg.
And I can sympathize with the chopping problem. Peeling cubic spuds would be a simple matter of six quick slices, rather than 5 minutes of trying to figure out how to use a potato peeler followed by 10 minutes of painstakingly peeling a single potato.
Can you tell I don't use a lot of fresh produce? Except eggs, but I just fry those.
The explanation I've read for the square watermelons (and other fruit?) is that it saves space when they transport and store the fruit. Space, the final commodity. (Well, actually it's more like one of the first, I guess...)
Last night I prepared a mango in a new and exciting way, that I had read about on the intertubes.
It involved a sharp knife and warnings not to stab yourself. I'm betting the lawyers made them put the non-stab bit in.
The cool part was having to invert the skin and flesh. It was like a Jamaican horror movie with fruit instead of zombies.
It ended up being just as messy as the old method. But I did get to see a fruit turned inside out.
It'd be harder to invert the skin of a square mango. The corners would tear.
Ahh, were you trying to make square pieces of mango to bite off? Those are tasty and fun, but the least messy way to eat a mango is to cut off the sides and scrape them out with a spoon. Then of course you consume the flesh you scraped out. You can peel mangoes, though, which is the messiest (and most fun) way to eat them.
Fresh produce? I know of what you speak. There is only Meat and Not-Meat.
Well, that would make sense, Gillsing. I do know that watermelons are often given as presents in Japan, so maybe it's just a variation (and probably a more expensive one at that) on a standard gift?
Honestly, I don't even know what a mango looks like, much less how to prepare/eat one. I should maybe look into that. . .
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