How funny when we select veggies whether it is at the market or even the grocery store we tend to always select (by looks) what we perceive to be the best pick. These picks by and large are blemish free. This is done solely on the veggies appearance.
Now who hasn't purchased that "perfect" veggie or fruit, bit into it and have been totally underwhelmed.
It was a few years back on one of the cable channels there was a program on wasted food. And yes most of this food was deemed inedible on appearances alone. This included off colored fruits and veggies, wrinkles, blemishes, the end cuts of deli sandwich meat. Nothing that would effect the flavor but solely because of their appearance, were deemed inedible and was doomed to be discarded into the dumpster.
The folks with this show persuaded the grocers to give this"trash" to them, since it was deemed worthless and would go into the dumpster.
The outcome was a number of world class chefs creating a 5 star banquet from this food. This was a success even though the banquet goers knew the history of their Dinner.
Something a little closer to home is in regards to tomatoes. The end of season tomatoes can very easily fall into this category of non edible by looks alone.
These little tasty orbs are harvested just before a killing freeze that would destroy them. they were then laid on newspaper in a cool back room. The first to ripen have that "perfect" appearance but as the others begin to ripen they begin to have a wrinkled look and begin to jump into the category of non edible. Myself if there is no other blemish I find these to be very tasty. This is because the fruit are becoming dehydrated and the tastiness of tomato is being concentrated.
How strange if I were to finish them off in a dehydrator there would not be any comment on their appearance.
I can only think that pioneers would look very cross eyed at us for discarding perfectly good food. I can only begin to imagine what their food stores looked like (blemishes and all) especially since it was what they were able to put by from last years crops. "flaws " would develop as they ate through there larder There was no grocery store with all its "perfect" food available at their fingertips. These stores had to last until spring and it was ALL that what was available for the table.
I can only encourage folks to try these"ugly ducklings". They may be very surprised.!!!
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