This is a guest article written by Food Tank Advisory Board Member Jonathan Bloom. Bloom is the author of American Wasteland and creator of the blog “Wasted Food.” Find him on Twitter at @wastedfood.
Have you ever seen an alphabet made out of fruits and vegetables? Me neither. With your help, that’s about to change.
I’m creating an alphabet poster using letter-shaped fruits and vegetables to celebrate quirky produce, especially with young people. Hopefully, these posters will end up in schools to illustrate that what’s on the inside is more important—both with people and produce.
What, exactly, am I talking about? Since a picture speaks volumes, here are some examples of what I call #alphabetproduce:
As you can see, alphabet produce can take a variety of forms and flavors. The trouble is that it’s hard to find a Q-cumber or an eggplant ‘X’ (or an anything X!). And here’s where you come in: I need your pictures.
Now, I don’t expect you’ll have a taxidermy ‘T’ turnip hanging above your mantle. Rather, the point of this piece is to say: Be on the lookout for alphabet produce the next time you’re at the farmers’ market, in the garden or wherever else you encounter real, local, or really local food.
As to what counts, there aren’t many rules here. Upper or lowercase is fine. Hopefully we can avoid using more than one item to create a letter, but it remains to be seen if we can find an ‘E’ without resorting to that tactic. More importantly, after you photograph your edible letter, make sure it’s actually eden (a bad Middle English joke…alright, fine—eaten).
Mindful consumption is the highest compliment we can pay our food. Here’s what happens to fruit when it isn’t eaten:
To avoid that fate and help fight the plight of unwanted oddities, please help us make this produce alphabet happen.
Step 1: Find and photograph produce letters.
Step 2: Email to AlphabetProduce@gmail.com or Tweet them to @WastedFood with the #AlphabetProduce hashtag.
Thanks so much, and here’s a fun song to get you in the mood:
