The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Brian Ojanpa

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July 17, 2009

A shout out for edgy veggies

If it’s true that you don’t really miss something until it’s gone, then put me down as someone who misses weird vegetables.

More precisely, hideously malformed or ungodly huge vegetables.

Even more precisely, said specimens brought to the local newspaper office so that a photo of them might be published in said newspaper.

Which doesn’t happen anymore for myriad reasons. And that’s too bad.

Garden oddities are nature’s version of Stupid Vegetable Tricks, and years ago people wanted to trumpet their discoveries of mutant spuds and steroidal squash lurking in the dirt.

Summer photos of wacky vegetables once was a staple feature in newspapers. Then is was decided that volleyball-size tomatoes and bell peppers shaped like California lacked the necessary criteria of “news.”

In other words, at the end of the day a tomato is a tomato is a tomato.

These days, the only time a vegetable gets major media attention is if extenuating circumstances are involved.

This occurs if, say, someone erects a backyard shrine to a potato that looks like Elvis. Or if people claim the face of Jesus appears nightly on a watermelon in Mexico.

In Miami a few years ago a couple of normal vegetables received attention for their entertainment status. A strip club there featured patrons and “hostesses” wrestling semi-nude in tubs of dill pickles and cream-style corn.

Meantime, big and bizarre vegetables continue to go unsung, but not unremembered.

For years, the Blue Earth County Fair’s big-vegetable competition was dominated by two people — Ethel Pahl and Mary Gardner — elderly sisters who were the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of garden whoppers until they finally hung up their hoes.

For nearly 30 years, the two dueled annually, going zucchini-to-zucchini for the heavyweight crown. If one didn’t win, the other usually did.

Melons, cucumbers, they grew them all and grew them big. Their secret? Benign neglect. Just plant it, leave it, and reap the harvest.

It’s enough to make a guy nostalgic, so I’m begging here: If anybody has a weird, huge or otherwise extraordinary vegetable this summer, bring it on by.

And if you’re concerned about it qualifying as news, just have it rob a liquor store on the way over.

Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or email bojanpa@mankatofreepress.com

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Brian Ojanpa