Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame
The Food Citizen
I recently had the pleasure of traveling between Vancouver and Victoria aboard a seaplane for work- my god those planes are tiny! With each pocket of air pressure and gust of wind we hit, the tail of the plane swished around like a bald tire’d Mazda on a sheet of black ice. To keep my mind off the erratically shifting horizon and white-capped ocean below, I leafed through my complimentary copy of Douglas, a business magazine based out of Victoria, B.C.
A feature article titled “Relationships: Victoria’s changing perspective on food and community” was just enough to hold my attention. After starting off with the usual discussion about local food production and the 100 mile diet, I stumbled upon a new concept: food citizenry.
Despite the fact that I’m a gardener and a grow-your-own evangelist, the article didn’t dive into the concept much and I had to ask myself:
What exactly does it mean to be a food citizen? Technically speaking, aren’t we all food consumers?
Of course, this question goes back to the consumer vs citizen argument from media and culture studies, which states that we are “continually shifting away from involving people in society as political citizens of nation states towards involving them as consumption units in a corporate world.” (Thanks, Habermas!).
It certainly doesn’t seem like a stretch to think of our food culture in this way. Since the beginning of the 20th century, we have increasingly shifted away from producing our own food to buying absolutely everything we eat, effectively reducing our relationship with food to simple consumer interactions. (I mean, have you seen those commercials for Uncle Ben’s rice with chicken and vegetables that you microwave in the plastic bag and eat in 2 minutes? Wow.) Food is just another part of our consumer culture, so what does it mean to become a food citizen?
Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame: The Grim Reaper
Since it’s harvest time for most gardeners on the West Coast right now, I thought this week’s entrant to the hall of fame should be timely and topical. So while you’re out there digging and picking the last of your crops, keep this week’s winner of the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame in mind:
That’s right. The Grim Reaper. The original rock n’ roll gardener. Ok, so where do we begin?
- Skeleton? Check.
- Name that alludes to death? Check.
- Gruesome depiction of human hands, feet and heads being harvested with a giant scythe? Check.
- Looks like it was drawn by a stoned high school boy with a black ballpoint pen on the inside cover of a social studies 10 text book? Check.
- Calls upon an ancient power so primal it could only be mistaken for heavy metal? Check and check.
All hail the Grim Reaper, the original rock ‘n roll gardener. Beelzebub be damned, this guy was the original right hand man for Satan- some say Satan himself.
The Grim Reaper has been variously portrayed in Western culture as the personified cause of all human death, or sometimes just the personal escort service for people that kick the bucket.
From Tarot cards to Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure, this guy gets around. Personally, I like this image the best- note the pretty rose bush, setting sun and winding river. The Grim Reaper represents the end of the season, the end of the life cycle, but not necessarily the end, for with every end there comes a beginning. So don’t put those shovels and gloves away for too long.
In the slavic pagan tradition, death was portrayed as an old woman dressed in white holding an everlasting green seedling in her hand. One touch of her plant put a soul to sleep forever. Now if only I knew what she was carrying… I found my Hallowe’en costume.
Rock n’ Roll veg of the week: Russian Blue Potatoes
It’s not quite black, but it’s close enough. And anything this dark and disturbing must be metal to the core. So this week’s winner for the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame is the Russian Blue Potato.
Russian Blue potatoes live up to their name- they really are from Russia, although, like all potatoes, they originated in South America. They’re an heirloom variety which means they’re totally old school and not genetically modified.
If you can find them at the market or buy seed to grow you own, they make for some fucked-up looking mashed potatoes. This is a great prank to pull on your family at Thanksgiving: Your parents won’t say a thing because they’ll assume it’s just an acid flashback, and your kids will squeal with glee because Barney finally got nailed with a blender.
These potatoes are a late season variety and don’t produce particularly high yields, but they are tasty and versatile , great for mashing and roasting. They also do extremely well as a baked potato-pair it with sour cream for a striking side dish.
Rock on potato lovers. Rock on.
Rock n’ Roll plant of the week: the Dracuncula
Wow. Where do I even begin with this one?
Not to be mistaken for the blood-thirty Dracula, the Dracuncula- or Dracunculus Vulgaris- is a perennial plant native to the Mediterranean.
This beauty goes by several rock n’ roll names: Dragon Arum, Black Arum, Voodoo Lily, Snake Lily, Stink Lily, Black Dragon, Dragonwort, and Ragons. In Greek, it’s known as the Drakondia.
This plant is rich purple with a jet black, phallic-looking “jack” or “spadix” that’s usually a foot in length, but can grow to be as long as 50 inches. Sure, we’ve heard that one before.
As if it couldn’t get any better than that, this one blooms for a very short period of time- about a day or two- and reeks to high heaven. The scent has been compared to rotting flesh, a corpse, dead meat, a carcus, road kill and death itself.
In fact, my mom has one growing in her yard and didn’t know it was blooming this year until she noticed two vultures circling overhead. The next day, one of them was digging around in her flower bed looking for rotting meat!
This one is definitely fit for the rock n’ roll gardening hall of fame.
Rock n’ Roll flower of the week: Black Poppy
Rule #2 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that could potentially make you high is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is the black Papaver Somniferum- the black poppy.
Papiver Somniferum is a sub-type of poppy more commonly known as the Opium poppy. This variety has”double” petals, lending a frilly, peony-type appearance to blooms.
Not only is this baby grown for food-grade poppy seeds, but it`s also the source of opium, morphine and codeine. Dope.
This earns the black poppy a clear place of honour in the Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
Papiver somniferum comes in many different colours, but given Rule #1 at this cracked pot- anything black is clearly rock n’ roll- this one gets double honours for the week.
Martha’s Tomato Tart
Bitter, gritty and horrible when fresh, green tomatoes are very sweet when slowly cooked in the oven. This recipe is like a pizza, but without the surly delivery guy or greasy box to hide your shame.
Admittedly, this is a fussy Martha frou-frou recipe and I love-to-hate that bitch. But it’s worth making once a year if you have some time and want to get fancy.
This was featured in the July 2005 edition of Martha Stewart Living- great way to use green tomatoes without frying them.
Rock n’ Roll fruit of the week: Black Krim Tomato
Rule #1 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that’s black is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is the Black Krim Tomato.
This variety is somewhat rare, but becoming increasingly popular with gardeners in Vancouver. It looks like raw meat when you slice it open, and comes from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimean peninsula in Russia. Did you catch that?
Not only is this tomato black, but it also comes from the Black Sea. Sweet.
This tomato is known as “Czerno Krimski” (Black Krim) in Russian, which sounds super cool if you slur like you’ve had too much vodka. Or maybe you have? If not, maybe you should.
Rock n’ Roll flower of the week: Nemophilia
Rule #1 at the Cracked Pot: any plant, flower, fruit or vegetable that’s black is definitely Rock n’ Roll, and earns a place in the weekly Rock n’ Roll Gardening Hall of Fame.
This week’s winner is Nemophilia Menziesii- or the Penny Black flower.
Nemophilia is a native North American plant that starts easily from seed and grows in hardy little clusters during the spring. Once blooming, this little rock n’ roll variety is covered in black flowers with white edges.
Nemophilia (n. latin) means “woodland-loving.” It comes from the Greek word nemos, which means “grove” and the Greek word philia, which means, “loving”.
It’s also pretty close to the word nymphofilia, meaning “sexual attraction to young women”- definitely the hallmark of Rock n’ Roll. This alone earns the plant a double honour.
The variety shown here goes by the common name, Penny Black. Not only could this easily be the name of a garage punk band started in Seattle in the 90’s, but it’s also the name of the world’s first adhesive postage stamp issued in England in the 1840s. This stamp was black, featured Queen Victoria and cost only a penny. It also looked fuckin’ cool, and could easily be cover art for their first album.
Cracked Pot Pix
