Two weeks ago, curious to this end, I sent an email out to some area food folks, hope to ensnare a full sack of reactions. The email posed the question ("If you were a vegetable, which one would you be?") and left the criteria open-ended. I gathered responses and took stock of the respondents' rationales where they were given.

Eric Smillie, proprietor of the excellently briny Oakland-based blog Awesome Pickle, would be a green cabbage, because "they're versatile, they're good for you, and they don't mess around."

Nancy Gammons of Four Sisters Farms near Monterey would be purslane. "It grows anywhere," she said: "[It's] tenacious...very nutritious, and remains humble."

Farmer Joe Shirmer, owner of Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz, would be red Russian kale. His clod-solid reasoning: "I would fly under the radar as many would think of me as common or mundane or even boring...but in fact I would be the biggest boldest most bountiful four season bad ass around. Nothing would bring me down. Heat, frost, wind, and drought would all pass me buy and I'd thrive. Tomatoes and beans, pomegranates and mandarin oranges, kiwis and peppers would come and go; I'd just kick back and grow -- the healthiest dude around."

Wild foods advocate Iso Rabins of forageSF got appropriately fungal with his pick-- a matsutake mushroom.

Having filled many bowls at his bean-in happy hours, Mark Andrew Gravel, the food activist/artist in charge of Agrarian Art Lab, fittingly leaned legume. "They are thrifty," he mused. "And very satisfying when made well. They seem like a fairly wise vegetable too. Plus they have two sisters that I'm into," he added, presumably making a keen historical reference to corn and squash, the crops North American Indian tribes frequently planted in patches as companions to beans.

Jamie Law, Manager of Media Relations and Special Events for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, would be corn because it's "versatile (corn meal, raw, cooked a billion different ways), tough, and great in sweet and savory dishes."

Nearly half a dozen Cafe Gratitude employees weighed in, including one who just had to drop a little "you are healthy" at the end of his answer. To share one response, the company's district manager Chandra Gilbert identified with humble Brussels sprouts: "Not everyone loves them although those who do love the heck out of them...and you really need to know how to treat them."

Finally, Gayle Pirie and John Clark of Foreign Cinema came through with chef-ly perspectives. Pirie would be "the artichoke, for the mild nutty flavor, many green leaves, and a deeply sweet edible heart at the center." Clark would be "celery for its intense rib cage, strength, magnificent versatility, and tender heart with edible leaves, delicious cooked or raw."

I have included only a sampling, but even from this, enough is clear: nearly all of the respondents associate themselves with vegetables they prize for eating and cooking. Some, like Smillie and Gilbert, also allude to looking for themselves in the vegetables they adore, perhaps coveting those vegetables' traits as their own, viewing them as vessels for whatever meanings they might infer. Brussels sprouts, for example, are divisive. They are, as Gilbert suggested, a little hard to love; they're so often taken in the wrong context, misinterpreted, and abused. We all have stories about them. They are like difficult people who do good work -- say, a crotchety old civil rights attorney prone to shouting down his secretary and making bad jokes at the wrong times. You can accept them, respect them, and like them immensely, but you can't take them wholly as they are. They have to be prepared well -- shredded for a salad maybe, or roasted whole. They need to be matched with suitable companions to smooth out their harsher aspects -- like bacon, or thyme and mustard. They should be served in the right setting, under the proper circumstances. A lot of vegetables -- along with people -- take some warming up. Until I was 22 or so, I was weird about parsnips. They always struck me as peculiar ghostly characters, like carrots ravaged by Bunnicula. With their tough skin and fibrous core, parsnips take a little finessing, but they are delightful once melting into a stew or sweetening a tuber puree.

spirit vegetablesspirit vegetables

Spirit Vegetables: What would yours be?