Nothing is Perfect

Grocery store. We spend a lot of time, feeling tomatoes and other vegetables because we are looking for perfection. Remember Tampopo, the classic Japanese food film? There’s a scene where this woman pinches fruit just to damage it. The store manager sees her and tries to pounce on her.

We don’t realize quality control has already taken care of that. Fruit and vegetables deemed ‘imperfect’ are fed to pigs or something. Farmers know there’s nothing like a perfect pumpkin. Look at this blog photo. What do farmers do with produce likely to be rejected by stores because it’s ‘sub-standard?’ They cook and eat it.

I won’t be cooking these two beauties for quite some time because they are perfect, like me. Yes indeed! I’m perfect because nature made me. How are these pumpkins perfect? Mystery. I cannot put them in a box or cubicle because I don’t know what they are. Tell me. Are you really pumpkins with a multitude of strings and seeds inside?

Ask your ancestors about us.

Now I remember. Ancient people worked with nature. Nature provided firewood, palm oil, fish, rabbits and pumpkins. The long green pumpkin could be a musical instrument like a horn once it’s dry. The other pumpkin which looks like a beautiful woman is a calabash for yogurt (amasi in Zulu). In West Africa, ancient people used the calabash for water or palm wine. They cut the top, removed the food inside, dried it and used the top as a lid.

Nature cannot talk but it knows how we discard food with unusual shape and color because of quality control. Indigenous people all over the world do not throw out ‘imperfect’ fruit and vegetables. They have ways of preserving them.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger