In Competition No. 2620 you were invited to submit an argument, in verse, for the superiority of one vegetable over another. It was Pablo Neruda’s ‘Ode to the artichoke’ that got me thinking about the pecking order in the vegetable kingdom. Here’s a snippet: ‘The cabbage/ Dedicated itself/ To trying on skirts,/ The oregano/ To perfuming the world,/ And the sweet/ Artichoke/ There in the garden,/ Dressed like a warrior,/ Burnished/ Like a proud/ Pomegranate…’ In a bumper crop of entries Martin Parker impressed, as did Frank Osen, David Mackie, Ray Kelley, Robert Schechter and Juliet Walker. In fact, you were all on sparkling form. But there’s room for only six winners, who are rewarded with £25 each. W.J Webster gets £30.
As for my pantheon of veg, the sprout
Is in, the artichoke as surely out.
(No, not the so-called ‘globe’, whose leaves you pluck
To give you something minuscule to suck:
Jerusalem’s the name my bête grise bears —
A golden guise to mask its grubby wares.)
It has a flavour no known sauce can cloak
And makes unwary diners gag and choke;
An earthy taste that seems to soil the tongue
No more to savour, say, than camel dung.
Consider now the modest Brussels sprout
All freshly gathered from its knobbly knout;
Prepared with ease and cooked to leave some bite
It makes a nut-sweet nugget of delight.
No one of subtle sense could ever doubt
The artichoke is worsted by the sprout.
W.J. Webster
The dull potato has been staking claims,
Boasting varietals with fancy names.
This humble tuber with its knobs and faults
Would seek to rank with grapes and single malts.
The carrot looks on loftily and smiles,
Rising above such disingenuous wiles.
Its tapered form one cannot but admire.
Redolent of a slim cathedral spire,
Or of some elegant chivalric lance,
The true embodiment of high romance,
The Don Quixote of the gastrosphere
For whom the role of Sancho in the rear
The maladroit potato makes its own,
Submissive to the carrot’s flaming cone.
Does not that colour hint of royal blood?
Call it then king, and call a spud a spud.
Noel Petty
With judgment unbiased and clinical care,
The sprout with the lettuce now let us compare.
No sensible soul would dispute, as a fact,
That little, tight balls, being firm and compact
Are better by far, to be brutally brief,
Than a languishing, lacklustre, limp lettuce leaf.
Rooted in soil with manifold bugs
The lettuce is readily riddled with slugs
But the sprout, raised aloft on its stocky stout stick
Is remarkably pest-free and simpler to pick.
The dental profession, we know beyond doubt,
Dismisses the lettuce and favours the sprout
Since teeth, to be strong, when it comes to the crunch
Need something quite solid to munch over lunch.
So legislate, Brussels! The time is at hand
For sprouts to be lauded and lettuces banned.
Alan Millard
Asparagus officinalis, lily languished on a platter,
slippery sybaritic phallus served with anchovies
and butter.
Decadence devoid of malice, bliss too beautiful to
utter,
like the salty voice of Callas, perfect tone devoid
of clutter.
Regal artichokes are very stylish fried in little wedges,
and in Rome the culinary variations leap from
fridges
to the antipasti trolley, but the connoisseur alleges
that Carciofi alla giudia rarely fails with knowing
judges.
Now the lily and the thistle face the ballot for the
gullet,
champing for the starter’s whistle and the stern
judicial mallet.
Texture, flavour, lack of bristle, general damage to
the wallet,
laid before the true apostle in the battle for the
palate.
Will it be the tougher petal wrapped around a tender
centre
or the gentle spear to get all praises from the show’s
presenter?
Artichokes are on their mettle, flaunting their
impedimenta.
Let the market forces settle — on your marks, the
judges enter.
Janet Kenny
Sing, Brassic muse, of that celestial strife
When Heaven’s host, at God’s divine behest
The vegetables of the world did make,
To set in Eden for humanity
To grow and eat. But when proud Lucifer
The cabbage made, the Lord cherished it not,
And in the schism Lucifer was damned.
The Lord then made that microcosmic gem,
The Brussels sprout, a new-created and
Perfected form of Satan’s cabbage (which
He did condemn for shredding, or to boil
To death). So the true glory of the earth
Is that sublimely vegetable orb
The sprout, and not the cabbage. Thus it is
That at the Feast of Christmas, sprouts may take
The place of honour on the festive plate.
Brian Murdoch
On vegetables, thanks to Bunyan,
‘I care not what men say’:
The humble Carrot and the Onion
Will do for every day,
While Peas in pods or neatly frozen
From garden, stall, or shop,
By all but me are surely chosen
As champions of the crop.
A taste for Beans? It wanes and waxes;
I hate the nasty Neep;
Cabbage suggests old folk in taxis,
And Cauli, dogs for sheep.
But CALABRESE — that’s a C
So cultured, so exquisite,
It sounds precisely right for me —
But what exactly is it?
Mary Holtby
No. 2623: Name game
You are invited to submit an extract from a novel or play, of which one letter of the title has been changed (e.g., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Deaf), in the style of the original author (150 words max). Entries to Competition 2623 by midday on 18 November or email lucy@spectator.co.uk. Email is preferable in view of the postal disruption.
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