Lee Pitts: Fancy Foo Foo Food

I’ve always loved being able to identity things. Whether it was guessing state license plates from afar, parts of dead frogs in zoology, breeds of dogs, Democrats or Republicans, makes of cars, kinds of cattle or cats, and crops growing along the road. It’s one reason why I enjoy grocery shopping so much which I’ve done religiously with my wife for 46 years. We’re lucky to live in an area where hundreds of crops are grown and I love being able to identify all the different fruits and vegetables, as well as the cuts of meat. From yards away I can identify Chinese artichokes, bok choy, white asparagus, purple sweet potatoes, purple carrots, kumquats, calabash, fiddleheads, daikon radishes, rutabagas, Hass avocados, kohlrabi, jackfruit, star fruit, tomatillo, tripe, top sirloins and tiger nuts (Insert snarky comment here).

My wife was a cashier in a grocery store for over 30 years and when grocery stores made the switch to scanners she had to learn to identify every single fruit or vegetable in the store and its corresponding number code so when it was weighed all she had to do was punch in its code and the computer did the rest. I remember quizzing her in the produce aisle and in the process I learned all the names of vegetables too. My wife became so good at this that she became the go-to authority in the store. For example, another checker would hold up a fruit and yell out, “Diane, what is this?”

“It’s an ugli fruit,” she’d reply.

“I know it’s ugly, but what is it.”

“I’m telling you it’s an ugli fruit.”

Eventually my wife would just yell out its code and the other checker would find out it truly was called an ugli fruit. You should have heard the exchange when my wife informed them the name of a vegetable was “yardlong”.

“No it’s not, it’s only eight inches,” another checker would reply.

“It may be two inches but it’s still yardlong, also known as asparagus bean, number 345.”

I tell you, it was like the old Laurel and Hardy routine Hardy routine of Who’s on First.

In the good old days when I was a kid we didn’t have to learn all these foo foo foods like Napa cabbage, sea chokes, sea beans, lichis, paw paw, and jicama. (No, that wasn’t a hiccup.) A paw paw is also known as a yam bean. I wish they’d make up their mind, is it a yam or is it a bean?

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