philosophy of a salad

Have you considered the inspiration in a list of ingredients? Consider it.

Eggs. Life on earth begins here. Men with long pipes and longer beards may sit by the fire and argue relentlessly about whether a child's soul enters a state of existence before or after conception, and where it resides, and of what it consists - but the subject of our current discourse limits itself to the infant offspring of chickens, who never are endowed with souls however long they may live. So there's little need to worry our little ponted heads (bearded or no) about that perplexing matter, at least not until after dinner. When wise, bespectacled men do argue about poultry,
the nagging question is always one of seniority: that is to say, which did come first - the chicken, or the egg? It seems no one has ever thought to go through security camera footage for evidence. If I had a beard and a pipe, that's what I would suggest.

Chicken. Miraculously concocted out of a puddle of goo inside a nerve-wrackingly fragile white orb (see the preceding paragraph for clarification); emerging at last as a weirdly cute yellow pom-pom, and finally morphing into an adult of disappointing ugliness; equipped with perfectly serviceable feathers and wings, yet incapable of flight, due mainly to obesity and a mostly useless brain (now that's not significant in modern America). Why these utterly helpless creatures have outlasted the T-Rex by so great a margin of time - I should think that question would have made Darwin tug anxiously on his regrettable beard. But the particular chicken now in question, after its strange little unlikely life has gone on long enough, will unfortunately have been beheaded, de-feathered, cut up, probably frozen, and eventually boiled until done. Did I forget to mention that the previously mentioned eggs are also boiled? Who can avoid being struck at this juncture by the fragility of life in all its manifold stages, and the great cosmic tragedy that is a hard-boiled egg? Now you go ahead and tell me it isn't a cruel world we live in.

Grapes. Green grapes, no less - fruit of the vine, fresh and bursting with tart energy, not to mention juice. On the one hand, a universally difficult fruit, they troubled Aesop's fox with their sourness, distressed weary American travelers with their wrath, and stirred up Ahab's most ridiculously covetous heart to murder. On the other hand, grapes embody an ageless celebration of life and happiness - sliced in half one at a time for the delight of the smallest toothed babes, inhaled with endless amusement by larger children pretending inexplicably to be greyhounds, or squashed up and stored in vats until fully grown individuals see fit to decant them on some starry evening into goblets of merriment. Vitality, fertility, and the total irrelevance of time: this is a grape.

Raisins. Withered and unrecognizable, the heedlessly youthful grape has lain too long in the sun, and come face to face with its mortality. Probably it is no coincidence that California raisins are advertised in such abundance. Inside that shiny red package, what a warning lies for all the hordes of reckless hedonists populating the earth's surface! Eyes open or closed, tummy tucked or untucked, you will stumble one day soon into Old Age - unless your greater enemy, Death, should suck you in first. Your tight green skin will wrinkle swiftly into folds of brown, and distorted works of Picasso will replace your collection of pricey tattoos. You will also become very sticky - an allegorical tidbit whose interpretation I will leave to the individual reader. Still, one cannot help but note that, despite its unexpectedly swift onset, the state of raisinhood is far hardier and more versatile than that of the stubbornly rotund grape - as evidenced by its long shelf life and ready inclusion in the construction of cookies, granola, trail mixes, ants-on-a-log, and cinamon bread. From this we learn that the latter years of life are not without their perks, and that if you grow old and stay sweet, children will still love you, which is no small thing.

Celery. In its propensity for stringy stuckness in teeth, this unfriendly vegetable has no rival. Known more for its crunch than for anything closely resembling flavor, it is most commonly made useful as a vehicle for peanut butter or cream cheese. Another of boring celery's more outstanding features (shared, incidentally, with lettuce) is its utter uselessness past the initial stages of optimal freshness, an unfortunate consequence of the total nonexistence of viable preservation methods. Not at all unlike this present moment of time, the moment in which you read this word, and which is already gone by the time you read this one - celery is never frozen, never canned, and never pickled; only its seeds are ever dried and kept in the cupboard for future use in soups and what-have-you. Also in common with the present, celery is often taken for granted, as the thoughts of its devourer dwell instead upon more apparently succulent foods (or days) already digested, or else yet to be tasted. The defining difference is that, while this undervalued hour of your life really is of inestimable worth, the unappreciated status of celery is supported by very sound logic.

Pickles. Pickles, on the other hand, like memories, last forever - whether you actively remember that you  have them on your pantry shelf or not. Though admittedly not a derivative, or even a distant cousin, of celery, pickles are made from cucumbers, which start with the same letter, and are frequently grown right in neighboring garden rows with our earlier subject of vegetable examination. In the consideration of a pickle, we have before us a clear manifestation of the diversity of mankind, as well as the total uniqueness of every human experience. A pickle is a pickle, yet the very same essence of vinegary recollection will conjure up images of Thanksgiving dinner with Grandma in one mind, of Burger King sandwiches snatched on the way to a game in another, and in yet one more the fascinating possibility of eating anything you can imagine on a stick while wandering the local county fair. Some quirky members of humanity may even be more inclined to savor the bread-and-butter variety instead of dill; judge not, lest ye be judged.

Pecans. Like the future, pecans are nearly always acquired at great cost to the consumer (unless you steal them, which I will never recommend, except on the off chance you are transmogrified into a squirrel - in which case, stealing will be well within your job description and, however irritating to bird watchers everywhere, perfectly lawful). Within the bounds of the law, it is only by leaving behind everything you had before that can you possess yourself of satisfactory quantities of either that-which-is-yet-to-come (and even then the future arrives only one instant at a time), or planet Earth's finest tree nuts (which, again, one ought really to consume individually). On another note, the singular excellence of a pecan pie causes one to raise the eyebrows and consider the undiscovered wonders that might be revealed if society would just give it up and acknowledge corn syrup as a sixth food group. But then, great admirers of flaxen hair have been known, historically, to wonder (with alarming success for a time) what would happen if one Adolf Hitler were permitted to take over Europe. Obsessions, however good they taste, are almost never healthy; in fact, I really only know of one that is.

Salt. Enhancer of innumberable flavors, invaluable preserver of meats, melter of ice and snow, strange permeator of Earth's largest bodies of water, the life and soul of popcorn. It killed Lot's wife, defines the language of many a sailor, and might or might not prevent impending disaster when cast over the shoulder. Not only outrageously diverse in its uses, salt must surely also be the great unifier in the world of granular food additives: India has one set of acceptable spices, China has another, and Canada yet one more (regardless of the mystery that shrouds its actual identity); Mexicans will have little use for basil, and Italians may not know the meaning of chili powder - but everyone understands salt. In edible form, it is a universal language; and if a gargantuan casserole had been the chief endeavor of Babel's self-glorifying citizens, it would almost certainly no longer exist. Incidentally, the one obsession (mentioned in an earlier paragraph) that safely may - and even desperately must - be allowed to take over a person's life in such manic proportions that one thinks of little else, is that of saltiness. What? you say. Salt of the earth, say I. It's a big planet - Steven Wright didn't want to paint it, but seasoning it is a full-time job. Please try this at home.

Sugar. Appearances can be deceiving, we've heard it said, and so we learn from sugar. Does it look like salt? Verily. Is it salt? Not on your life. In fact, there's a distinct possibility that (in excess) sugar will kill you. Ahh, the vital necessity of parenthetical phrases. Still, there are prudent souls the world over, who see fit to introduce to their culinary creations a more healthsome replacement for this dubious white substance - something, perhaps, such as honey. Honey, miraculous product of a bee's industrious gluttony, zipping from flower to flower and tasting of each one's willing offering, while unwittingly spreading the seed of a future crop, for the benefit of its own buzzing descendants. The dizzying intricacy and weirdness of this universe, who can trace? And from what accidental Bang can it have, oops, originated? And if we began with an intent to discourse on the implications of sugar, but descended instead upon the favorite snack of one Pooh Bear, what is it to you?

Mayonnaise. Is a fitting monument to mankind's collective insanity. Because, seriously. Who invented mayonnaise? And why? Also worth considering is the manifest injustice of social profiling. You might infer from the preceding introductory remarks, that I don't like mayonnaise; but that wouldn't be true at all. Did I ever say that mayo was bad? No, only insane. So, also, we must never allow ourselves to assume that all black men who wear baggy pants are thugs, or that everyone who absent-mindedly hums 'Alejandro' actually approves of Lady Gaga's lifestyle, or that all chipmunks are cowards. In light of this great potential for misinterpretation, one might also begin to ponder the importance of presenting one's self, as much as possible, as one really is. If you're not a coward, don't be a chipmunk. If you don't like Lady Gaga, don't hum her. If you believe Muslims are dying unsaved, Haitian children are living in cardboard boxes, and abortion really is murder, get off the hamster wheel and do something.

So there you have it: mother and child, youth and old age, all the aeons of time, good and evil, and mayonnaise - all in one salad. If, after all that, you still have anything resembling an appetite, the actual recipe is available - at no extra charge - below.

Good day.