In praise of deformed veggies

A few weeks ago, the European Union, in its infinite wisdom, lifted a ban on "ugly fruit and produce." Now, I am a self-described socialist, but even I think this is an example of government going too far. I mean, why on earth would you ban weird-looking food to begin with, as long as it is otherwise perfectly okay? For one thing, there's no excuse to waste food when so many people are dealing with food insecurity, not to mention out and out starvation in less fortunate parts of the world. And for another thing, weird-looking food is cool and makes for great conversations. Think of all those Virgin Mary sightings in potato chips or (insert your favorite food of choice here).

To celebrate this long overdue turn of events, I wanted to share these pictures. The Siamese potato is from our garden, and the carrot pants we found at the Hollywood Farmer's Market. The carrot knots we grew our first year gardening, before we figured out the whole thinning thing.




I should add that I've never seen carrot knots for sale anywhere, presumably because any gardener worth his or her salt would know how to grow carrots properly. Still, they're perfectly good carrots, and once we cut them up they tasted fine. Besides, they look too bizarre not to share.