Attack of the Giant Zucchini

My nightmare after a visit to the farmers’ market is not about being squashed by a gigantic mutant zucchini. It is that the super-sized green monsters will flood the market, and I won’t be able to find the sweet, tiny ones I prefer. Of course, in the event of an actual flood, I could use the giant zucchini as a canoe.

I have been a regular shopper at farmers’ markets for decades, in four states. Not until I came to Minnesota have I encountered zucchini of such ample length and girth. What’s next? Giant okra pods? Yes, I fear it may be so. We have approached the tipping point for ideal okra-pod size, and the prospects are grim, if giant zucchini become the standard on the vegetable growth chart.

At the market’s lone booth that offered okra for sale, I saw pods ranging in size from the preferred finger length to six inches co-mingling in each carton. Since farmers’ markets are celebrated as an arena where buyers and venders can interact, I decided to speak up and nip the vegetable gigantism trend in the bud.

“I wonder if I might suggest you consider harvesting okra when it is finger length, instead of the bigger pods, which can be woody,” I said in my best imitation of Minnesota nice.

“Different people have different tastes,” she shot back. “Some people like the bigger ones.”

(Excuse me? Maybe if you’re a rodent!) Somewhere inside my brain those words screamed for expression. I resisted. But my shocked double take and look of disbelief were involuntary. She assured me she had researched okra size on the internet. While I don’t doubt her, if she tried eating okra – as I have done all my life – she would not need to rely on the internet.

We compromised. She removed the giant, woody okra pods from the carton and replaced them with smaller ones. I said no more about the quality of her harvest.

The “buy local” campaign came to mind last Wednesday at the CSB and SJU All Campus Community Forum at Gorecki Conference Center at CSB, when we kicked off a Year of Sustainability. It looks to be an intense year, as we learn from each other how we can live in a more earth-friendly way.

The issues and personalities are complex – a blooming profusion of scientific facts, opinions, beliefs, myths, values, personal habits, social mores, cultural norms, idealists, crusaders, naysayers, skeptics, gadflies and the occasional law of unintended consequences. Let us not forget that the automobile once was considered the answer to pollution on the streets of New York City, where horses trod. This year could put to the test the Benedictine art of listening.

Should be fun, as long as we guard against the attack of the giant zucchini.