thirty-thousand pounds of bananas

I was a very picky eater when I was a kid. I didn't like most vegetables and I didn't like most fruit. Every once in a while, I would eat a few slices of apple... if the skin was peeled off and it had absolutely no remnant of core attached. And even then, I would only eat a minimal amount until I opted for something.... chocolaty-er. Sometimes, I would eat a grape or two, but that was a rare occurrence as well. Once or twice, I may have eaten a sliced banana in my morning cereal, but only because I saw it as a "serving suggestion" on the front of a box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and I figured that Tony the Tiger wouldn't steer me wrong. I did not make it a habit.

When I was 19, I ran an outdoor fruit and vegetable stand for my cousin who owned a produce delivery service in Philadelphia. He would buy bulk fruits and vegetables from wholesalers and distribute them to local restaurants. In the summer months, he would purchase additional stock to sell to passers-by on Spring Garden Street, a major city thoroughfare that saw a lot of foot traffic from nearby public transportation. I ran that sidewalk stand for him for a couple of summers. It was a great job. I was able to sit out in the sun and kibitz with regular customers. I was often asked about the fruit I was selling. "Hey, are the plums sweet today?" and "How are the strawberries and cherries?" I never knew how to answer. I never sampled any of my wares. And, much to my cousin's chagrin, I bluntly told the truth. My answers, as you can imagine, were met with puzzled looks. How could a guy who sells this stuff not eat this stuff? But, that was the situation, whether my customers liked it or not.

Sam the Banana Man

A few years ago, I read a fascinating book called The Fish That Ate The Whale. It was the biography of Sam Zemurray, a Russian immigrant who was responsible for introducing the banana to the United States. The book read like a swashbuckling adventure novel, filled with international intrigue, double-crossing, espionage and high finance. Oh.... and bananas. I enjoyed this book so much. It almost made me want to start eating bananas. Almost. But, I didn't.

Recently, however, I have changed my eating habits considerably. Although I have been a vegetarian for nearly fifteen years, I have not been the model vegetarian. Sure, I stopped eating meat, but I wasn't necessarily the most healthy eater. I still ate candy and cake and cookies and all kinds of non-healthy foods. I just didn't eat meat anymore. It took a health scare to bring me to the realization that as I approach my "golden years" I should stop eating like a six-year old. I stopped eating junk, introducing nuts, grains, fresh vegetables and even the long-avoided fruit into my diet. And just within the past few months, I started eating bananas. A lot.

I now cap off my evening  meal with a ripe, yellow banana. With every bite, I cannot believe that I never ate bananas on a regular basis. I saw other kids when I was growing up consuming bananas all the time — during school lunchtime, at recess, on the playground, everywhere. My brother ate bananas. My mother offered me bananas and I always refused. What was wrong with me? Why was I passing up those delicious, easy-to-access, easy-to-manage, self-contained treats. Bananas are pretty much the "perfect food." They are high in potassium and are good for lowering blood pressure. They are a good source of essential vitamins and minerals. Bananas are high in fiber, while being naturally free of sodium, cholesterol and fat. They come in their own wrapper which can be used to provide comic relief, if properly implemented. And they taste pretty good, too. 

The Gros Michel (also known as "The Big Mike") was the most popular variety of bananas in the world. In 1965, disease wiped it out, bringing the Gros Michel to extinction. It was replaced by the Cavendish variety, which is what most supermarkets, greengrocers and produce purveyors currently stock internationally. There is speculation that, because bananas are notoriously difficult to cultivate and very susceptible to disease, the Cavendish could face the same fate as the Gros Michel. So eat them while you can.

I know I will. And I'll be making up for lost time.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

out here in the fields

Sunday mornings are sacred for me. No, no — not in the religious, church-going way, but in the sense that I don't like to do a goddamn thing. I wake up, make myself a cup of coffee, flip on the TV, plop myself down on the sofa and prepare myself for a full day of Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch and a compellingly hokey episode of The Love Boat. Yessir! Sundays don't get much better than that!

Late Saturday evening, our neighbor Rae called to ask if Mrs. P and I would like to accompany her family on a "pick your own produce" adventure at an orchard in the suburbs just south of Philadelphia. My wife, who loves adventures and loves the concept of "the more the merrier," jumped at the invitation. Rae optimistically asked, "Josh is a 'hayride' kind of guy, isn't he?" My wife laughed. "Yeah, sure he is.," she responded. Hanging up the phone, my spouse asked if I'd like to go on the proposed outing. I smiled and answered the same way I have answered many, many times over the past thirty years, "I will be happy to do anything you'd like."

Sunday morning we arrived and piled into a hay-filled, flatbed trailer that was hitched to a tractor — a real live farm tractor. We were informed by the wizened and weather-beaten farmer that we'd be driven out to the area of the farm where we could pick peaches and corn, two produce commodities that I wasn't aware even knew each other. I reluctantly sat down in the dry hay bedding and the tractor rumbled off along a tree-lined, bumpy dirt path. I checked the time. Yep, right about now Peter was probably breaking Mom's favorite lamp, despite repeated warnings to not play ball in the house. Soon, Captain Stubing and crew would be departing for locales "exciting and new" and here I was in the back of a farm vehicle, covered in what was, essentially, horse feed.

Rotten peaches, rottin' in the sun

The tractor shuddered to a halt and, armed with the cardboard box equivalent of a bushel, we headed down a wide aisle shaded by leafy peach trees. Now, I don't eat a lot of fruit. I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn't have the opportunity to select our own pineapples and bananas. I had swarthy visions of hacking the mighty stems with a machete, until it was explained to me that those tropical fruits only grow in the tropics (hence the name) and that Delaware County, Pennsylvania did not fall into the realm of a tropical clime. Still, I followed my group as they strolled among the trees choosing large peaches, their skin blushing and inviting (the peaches, I mean). Some (like the ones pictured) weren't so lucky to be among the picked. We set forth with the harvest, and satisfied with our haul in the peach department, we crossed a ruddy, dirt path to where a series of corn stalks were compacted into cramped rows. Now, I like corn. It is tops on my "Vegetables I Will Eat" list, followed closely by French fries and more corn. (I know, I profess to being a vegetarian, but that doesn't mean I exclusively eat vegetables. It means I don't eat meat. As a matter of fact, I don't really care for vegetables. But, being a vegetarian does not prohibit me from eating pie and Oreos. And I take full advantage of that.) I uncharacteristically dove headlong into the glut of the corn crop, examining the husk-covered ears clinging to the thick stalks. With an audible crack!, I snapped off some of the larger ears and tossed them into my cardboard carry box where they unnaturally mingled with the peaches. O., Rae's husband, approached me holding an ear of corn, freshly stripped of its protective husk. O. was chomping on a raw piece and offered me a section which he had broken off. "No thank you," I said, as I waved him off, "I prefer mine cooked. I don't want to eat raw corn out here like I'm an escaped prisoner hiding from the warden's guards in a cornfield and foraging for food."

The hay wagon pulled up, ready to drive us back to the parking lot. Our little group boarded, along with a dozen or so others, like migrant farm workers returning from a hard day in the fields, all carrying their spoils of the earth's bounty. As we chugged to a stop at our destination, I turned and announced to my fellow "You Pick"ers that all of this stuff is readily available at a place called a 'supermarket' and little to no effort need be exerted to yield the exact same result.

He Who Walks Behind The Rows

During our little exercise in "let's pretend to be a farmhand," Mrs. P snapped this photo of me and sent it off to our son via text. She included the message, "Look what I got your Dad to do."

He instantly replied, "What? Go outside?"

www.joshpincusiscrying.com