Eat – Er – Play Your Vegetables

A couple of friends of mine are in the process of starting up a new company that will deliver delicious, healthy raw food lunches to customers in downtown Sarasota. Since one of these friends is my roommate, Joan, our ‘fridge is always loaded with scrumptious fresh veggies and I have the side benefit of getting to test all the new recipes they’re developing. With all this testing and development, I thought I’d seen just about every possible use for raw vegetables, but I bet they’ve never considered using them for a vegatable orchestra like this one:

I watched this video twice. I couldn’t help wondering what happens as the vegetable instruments ripen. Do the notes change? I kept picturing these musicians under hot stage lights, struggling to maintain the integrity of their performance as their precisely drilled carrots and parsnips slowly wilt and droop. I have an image of a percussionist beating on a hollowed-out pumpkin one too many times, his fist suddenly breaching the outer skin and landing in a slimy bed of orange pulp. And just how do they determine where to drill the holes in the wind instruments? Gives new meaning to the phrase “organic sound.”