The other day, I stumbled upon this photo on my phone. I took it during the holidays at the grocery store. (Sorry for the delay.) Apparently, there’s a new kind of vegetable: green bean broccoli. Is green bean broccoli a genetically modified “Frankenfood?” How does one prepare the “crowns?” Sign me, Gore May
Is green bean broccoli the new superfood superstar? What an intriguing question!
But the first thing any decent journalist must do is to verify that there’s such a thing as green bean broccoli.
Not that decent journalists or verification matter these days.
After all, we have moved beyond the Age of Truthiness into the Era of Alternative Facts.
As of early January, not only are we entitled to our own opinions, but also to facts of our own choosing.
No one can dispute a self-constructed reality when it’s impossible to check facts that don’t exist.
It’s kind of like Sasquatch.
There are people who will swear that Bigfoot exists, despite having no proof other than that grainy film footage from 1967.
So here we are 50 years later with green bean broccoli.
We have photographic proof. Yet there are doubters, including every grocery store clerk interviewed by Action Line.
Perhaps we should ask the president. Can he make the produce aisle great again?
However, before beseeching the Oval Office, Action Line took the matter to an even higher authority: the La Plata County Extension Office.
When it comes to food crops, extension director Darrin Parmenter is the Commander in Chef.
Our good friend Darrin understands the controversies surrounding Alternative Facts in horticulture.
“Relations amongst the vegetables is currently a nondiscussed topic in this office, even on Twitter,” he said.
“However, off the record, green beans could not cross with broccoli, even though my grandma wished they could. It would have killed two casseroles with one stone at Thanksgiving.”
But imagine the possibilities of hybridization.
“If they did cross, perhaps we could have a broco-beanie, which could cover my bald head during these cold winter months,” said Darrin.
Plant nerds (Action Line is a card-carrying member of this genus) will tell you that broccoli is just a modified form of wild mustard, or Brassica oleracea.
Other Brassica cultivars include cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, kohlrabi and kale.
In essence, they are Frankenfoods, having been domesticated and hybridized for centuries into six related foods from the same plant.
Because they are the same plant, any of those six crops could easily cross.
Green beans, on the other hand, are members of the self-pollinating legume family.
Thus, broccoli and green beans will refuse to participate in any horticultural shotgun wedding, no matter how strong-arm the pimping.
But let’s not close the boudoir door on strange bedfellows. If we can’t cross certain crops, maybe we could hybridize some local organizations.
For instance, what if CDOT hooked up with the Durango Arts Center?
We’d have CDARTS. It could meld modern abstractions with the Bridge to Nowhere to make art even less accessible.
We could hybridize the Durango Welcome Center with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The resulting offspring would warmly hail everyone to the Old West and then coldly deport anyone hailing from the Old World.
Or we could combine recreation with sanitation by crossing a whitewater river park with a sewage-treatment facility.
Oh wait. We are already doing that at Santa Rita.
Suddenly, impossible and impractical green bean broccoli makes total sense.
Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can ask for anonymity if your Snowdown outfit consists of a tin-foil hat and a space blanket.
