When the European Economic Commission was formed, we all thought it was a good idea.

It was a nice little trading club of a few countries in Europe.  You know the kind of thing – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

One day, the word went around that the EEC was to ban carrots if they weren’t straight.

Oh, how we laughed.

This was a great joke.  Imagine outlawing a vegetable because it had a kink in it!  After all, mankind had been eating weird shaped things from the dawn of time.  It had to be a gag by some reporter with a sense of humour.

But it wasn’t.

They outlawed any vegetables and fruit that didn’t conform to strict standards.  From now on, we were to only get Aryan produce.

I could never understand the reason for this.  It is true that it made life easier for packers.  Carrots are easier to slice in bulk if they are straight.  So it would have been logical to separate the produce into ‘conform’ and ‘non-conform’ and to trade them separately.  But no.  Any non-conformist produce was to be dumped.  This was bureaucracy gone insane.  At a time when millions were starving, Europe was dumping untold tons of food because it didn’t look nice.

Another strange aspect of this was that they showed no concern for taste at all.  Food looked good – nice and straight and evenly shaped, but it tasted like cardboard.  Obviously we eat with our eyes.

There was talk at one stage of growing cubed tomatoes, because they would be more efficient to pack, and could be sliced without the knife slipping.  That idea was dropped though.

…

Someone has finally seen the light.

Millions are still starving [but who gives a shit about them?], but now we are being affected by soaring food costs.  We can’t starve.

They are going to allow kinky stuff back on the shelves.

We are back to the good old days of weird shaped parsnips and knobbly potatoes.

Herself will be pleased.