THE “MALNUTRITIOUS THREE”: AN INTERVIEW WITH ICEBERG LETTUCE, POTATO, AND PARSLEY
I was lucky enough to get an exclusive interview with the group of friends the popular media has dubbed “The Malnutritious Three” just after their release from cold storage. These vegetables have been wrongly accused of being useless to the human alimentary community, or at times even straight up unhealthy. After years of being locked up and forgotten in the crisper, justice has been served to these innocent grocery staples, and they are at last able to speak their nutritionally valuable truth to the public.
You’ve all been wrongfully accused of being “unhealthy” or “useless” vegetables despite (or perhaps even because of) your popularity in the broader alimentary world. Maybe you could each talk about how you found yourselves on the wrong side of society and what that has felt like?
Parsley: How about instead we talk about how we started out on the right side? We’re here to clear our name, not face fresh accusations.
Potato: Seriously brah, you want to go straight to talking about us being all fucked up evil non-nutritious monsters again? I thought you saw us, dude.
You’re so right and I do apologize. I’m still kind of new to this journalism interview thing. I usually just write editorial gardening columns. I was going for a bad-to-good story arc kind of thing, trying to give you a neutral platform to preach your place in this world. Jeez, why am I even talking about me? Go ahead. Let’s talk about who you are, why you are known, and the gifts you’ve given this world.
Iceberg Lettuce: Potato, dude, I get it, but take a chill pill, brah—this guy’s got us. Let me just tell you about my start. My guys over here, it’s more complex for them, they’ve got history you and me can only begin to understand. Me, I’ve only been around about a hundred years. It all started when Washington Atlee Burpee got into the plant business and started breeding crops that would ship well across the United States. This is the same Burpee you get seeds from at your local hardware store today. Those seeds ain’t worth so much and I wouldn’t recommend them, kin that they are to me. I feel like it’s OK if I say as much.
Potato: You tell ‘em girl!
Lettuce: Anyhow, old Atlee’s breakthrough moment was yours truly. In 1894 my man made the sturdy ass, wilt-resistant, highly-travelable salad green you see before you today. All greens before me wilted, bruised, and turned to mush when they moved across the states. Tasty, nutritious greens became a possibility throughout this great nation, thanks to yours truly.
Potato: And you know she was bringing that nutrition to the table. Like we all do. Like we always have done. Iceberg lettuce got thrown in the corner of the cooler like the rest of us. Like just because she’s not deep green, something’s wrong with her. Yeah, she’s 90% water but look at you and your needy meat suit: It’s 80% water. We’re not so different, us vegetables and you.
Parsley: Bro, it’s like the same as how it happened to you, my man. Like just because you’re the best thing for feeding everyone and everyone knows about you, everyone just wants an excuse to hate you. Bro. Like free Britney Spears, you know?
Well it’s so beautiful to see you exonerated and recognized for what you really bring to the table again. How about you, parsley? Did you come to be thrown in this alimentary backwater for the same reasons as your friends here?
Parsley: Nah man, mine is a different story and I’ll get to telling it. But first, dude, the potato. You know how much this guy has carried civilizations? How destroying him has almost eradicated entire ethnicities? This dude traveled from the freakin’ Andes mountains across the entire globe as the most dependable energy and nutrition-dense plant on the planet, and tell me he’s not delicious no matter how you cook him. But people these days are all, “Oh no, starch—potatoes are unhealthy because they have carbs and I hate energy.” The hell you mean you hate carbs? You hate energy? You hate being able to think or move or exist? What do you actually think carbohydrates are? Then you freaking guys chop him up and fry him and put all these trans fats in there, making your chips and fries and such, and refuse to take responsibility for turning him into something your body doesn’t want.
Lettuce: At least they never put me in the fryer.
Parsley: Yeah yeah, alright. Anyway, you make this guy into some legit unhealthy food and then think he’s always been that way and then this whole “couch potato” thing happens. It’s not right.
Potato: It’s not right, bro.
Parsley: I mean, they’ve written books about this guy! Volumes. They still do! Potatoes are so deeply ingrained into human culture worldwide. Frickin’—
Potato: Frickin’ Bob Atkins bro.
Lettuce: Yeah. I dunno though, Atkins was always cool with me and Parsley.
Parsley: Yeah, Atkins always been good by me. I was about to say frickin’ Ireland bro! C’mon! With the books. And the potatoes!
Yeah, potato deserves the world and then some, as does Ireland, but y’all have other places to be and I’m running out of time here. Parsley, why don’t you tell me a little about you and Atkins?
Potato: Dude, you know how long this curly green guy just sat next to me and some steak on a plate all curled up and ignored?
Lettuce: And then I’d be up there on the table in a bowl, drowning in ranch, even lonelier than parsley, just watching that meat and potatoes go down. Man, that was really the beginning of the end for us, wasn’t it?
Parsley: But look at us now! We are back, my bros!
Potato: You know when parsley used to chill on the plate with me, that wasn’t just garnish. Everyone forgot somewhere along the line, but my guy was put there as a digestif. Parsley is exceptional at helping with bloating, digestion, and indigestion. Like so many herbs that have had their Western health mongering comeuppance in recent years, my dude’s roots lie in the Mediterranean because over there they’ve known how to use those “herbs” for flavor and health from the get. Everything red meat does to hurt you, he’s been helping combat from day one.
Parsley: Yeah, that’s how I got around in the first place. I’ve been battling the free radicals that stone-aged charred meat throws in you, and helping you digest that brain-feeding meat so your kidneys and heart don’t surrender in the middle of it all. But beyond that, old Bobby Atkins, he loved me like nutritionists have never stopped loving me, like the Argentinians never stopped loving me. Do you even chimichurri, bro? I am frickin’ loaded with a multitude of B vitamins, and vitamin C and K. I am a frickin’ health beast bro.
Lettuce: Alright alright my guy, we’ve all got all those vitamins in us. Chill, my man.
Potato: Not like he does though. None of us got it like he does. Let him have it, Iceberg. And when he went from curly to flat, people started noticing. We’ve got enough on our plates as is, and we’re all in this kitchen together. When our powers combine, we are captains of the healthy dinner palate.
illustrations by Rachel Speck
