Friday, August 29, 2008
Eat it Over the Sink
Thank goodness – it’s finally juicy-luscious harvest time, when, without apology, even grownups can get down and get messy. Whether you’ve got a sunset-colored peach exploding nectar down your chin, or thick slices of a homegrown tomato spurting slippery seeds out the sides of your BLT, now is the time for my favorite piece of wisdom: “If it’s messy, eat it over the sink.” It has the ring of grandmotherly truth, but I heard it first from the witty contemporary novelist Tom Robbins. Let me say it again: “If it’s messy, eat it over the sink.” Think how it reverberates! I mean, it’s practical advice when you’re slurping watermelon in a shirt you hope to still wear after your snack, but think how it applies to all those Real Life situations that we’d do well to admit can never be mopped up with a napkin. So, why try?
We may know in our hearts that the world is smeary shades of gray – and yet we seem to long for simple clarity. Isn’t that one of the appeals of the Olympics? On the one hand, there’s the playground-nostalgia for winners and losers – the blunt simplicity of gold, silver and bronze. But of course we know it’s messier than that – whether it’s Michael Phelps’s hundredth of a second finger-touch win, or the fairy-sized Chinese girls’ gymnasts, or suspicions of doping souring the air—we know better than to think there’s absolute purity in any decision.
And after a week of the Democratic convention, can we think of anything sloppier than electioneering politics? There’s no use bemoaning the loss of simpler times; from powdered-wigs onward, Americans have always needed hip-waders for this mucky business. But we’re fools, I’d argue, for wishing our candidates would offer clean, simple solutions for truly sticky problems. Better to embrace the “just eat it over the sink” attitude for issues from reproductive rights to the use of military force that deserve to be explored in all their messy complexity. We’re more likely to find common ground, shared purpose and strength, somewhere in those mingling juices than in cut-and-dried side-taking. Maybe that’s why Hillary Clinton wore a suit the color of ripe oranges for the speech she hoped would remind Democrats of past struggles that yielded the taste of victory.
Our ancestors knew quite a lot about the goodness that can come from juicy messes, as I was reminded in an heirloom tomato tasting event last week in a South Bend community garden. Golly, some of those old varieties are ugly as the hind end of a baboon, but the taste – omilord – my eyes were rolling back in my head while juice ran down my arms. We slurped mottled Green Moldovans with a surprise kick of lime. We savored Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes, compared in one catalogue to a “mahogany-colored Bartlett pear with greenish shoulders”—but get this – they taste of chocolate – no joke! For a heavenly hour, we rolled the multi-colored tomato flesh on our tongues, trying to name the many notes with the linguistic panache of wine connoisseurs. We licked the juices off our fingers, laughing as we crooked forward to keep the drips off our clothes. What sad madness that Americans have come to accept as normal the genetic freak tomatoes piled in grocery store pyramids like dry, red tennis balls. No mess, it’s true. And no sweetness, no juice, no operatic range of complex flavors. At the evening’s end, in the jungle of that late-summer garden, we smeared the seeds of our favorites onto strips of paper towels, with their eccentric names penciled on the top, to air-dry and preserve for next summer’s bounty.
What better time of year than these still-sun-rich-but-fading-to-gold harvest days to remind ourselves that what yields the most juice, the most flavor, the most promise, may also require us to get dirty and not mind. You want politics that reflect our complexity as Americans? Then be willing to have messy conversations with people who have different taste than you. Go on – be inspired by the abundance of the harvest. Sure, it’s messy, but there’s room at the sink for all of us.
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Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
April Lidinsky -- Eat it Over the Sink / More essays by April
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Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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