Last week, as summer gave way to pumpkin season, I found myself contemplating the final squash. Like the horror movie trope of the final girl staggering out of the woods after the massacre, this squash is the sole survivor. All her sister squashes had either been cooked and eaten or left to rot. Now, my killing days were almost over. There would be no sequel.
Or, to put it less dramatically: after six years, we have quit the local organic veg bag collective, which delivered to a nearby pickup point a bag of organic, local seasonal veg once a week. And as a result the mental load and emotional labour of having to contemplate and devise a use for various esoteric kinds of veg is finally, mercifully, over.
I approached the final squash the way I had many, many of her contemporaries. First, I tried to identify her so I could work out how to cook it and whether the skin was edible or not. “Medium-sized frilly orange pumpkin type” I wrote into Google. No match was forthcoming. Then I took a picture of it and did an image search. Still no match. For all its supposed miraculous capabilities, during my own experiments AI has never successfully identified a single pumpkin.
Usually, this is the point where my cortisol soars, but this time it stayed stable: this was the last time that I would expend precious time and energy trying to correctly identify a vegetable, before giving up and doing what I always do, which is chopping it up and roasting it.
Now that it’s done, I cannot tell you how liberated I feel. No more kohlrabi. No more Jerusalem fartichokes. Only my husband will miss the turnips.
Historically, I have always been a great quitter. To use hideous modern parlance, anything that no longer “served” me, whether a job, a relationship, a university course, a country, would always be efficiently dispatched. No looking back.
Leaving the local organic veg collective didn’t feel like this, though. Being a member felt like the right, ethical thing to do (“Don’t be mean about them,” my husband says. “They are a great service”). Raised by a veg box mum – and being a Guardian writer to boot – surely this was my destiny, my birthright? It gave me a warm, self-satisfied glow, albeit an ephemeral one lasting only until I was once again scrubbing layers of caked mud from all of the potatoes just so I could make my kid some sodding chips. “What is this? Wartime?” I muttered to myself.
I’d say my heart hasn’t been in it for at least two years, probably longer, but despite the fact that the relationship had become toxic I felt guilty for wanting to leave. Ever since I had my son, the veg bag has been an albatross. During the long winters, I cursed the endless beetroot. By March we were all about 65% parsnip. “More bloody parsnips,” we would sigh, as we unpacked on a Wednesday. “I’m not sure I can do this any more.” Yet another season was always around the corner. The green promise of spring. “Soon! There will be asparagus!” And we would stick it out for another year.
Well, it’s done now, even though I keep picturing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shaking his head in disapproval, along with you, dear reader. The veg is more ethical, better for you, and tastier than anything from a supermarket. All of this I acknowledge. Maybe I’m just lazy. And yet, I am a confident – some might say even good – cook. I make meals from scratch, I understand about vitamins and nutritional value. I sometimes open, and look at the pictures in, recipe books by Nigel Slater. It was just that something finally had to give.
It may sound hyperbolic, but getting rid of the veg bag has saved me from a breakdown, possibly. My mental load feels far lighter. “I feel so fucking free, you guys!” I posted, on Instagram, and was inundated with people who had been on the same journey. In some cases, arguing about the rotting veg in the bottom of their fridges was affecting their marriages. We all wanted to do the right thing, it’s just that modern life simply didn’t feel compatible.
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I have some fond memories of the veg bag. I’m grateful to the collective for feeding my family. I will miss being a member, especially at Christmas. We joined during the pandemic, when not every item was always available in the shops. My son was weaned on pureed celeriac. We got to try things I never would have otherwise – winter purslane! Land cress! – and I adored the rainbow chard. The kohlrabi actually made a very nice rosti. Even the final squash was completely and utterly delicious, as if to try to tempt me back. But no. It’s over. And I am finally free.
