Round peg, square hole

Recently the art director at The Desert Advocate  alerted me to an article on square watermelon. Has nature upended? No. Of course not. Some Japanese “farmers” have            begun growing watermelons in square Lucite containers so the  ubiquitous summer fruit would better conform to the shelves of the average refrigerator.

How dare nature be so ... natural to offer us the juicy melon in an inconvenient shape. But then again, I’ve long been a proponent of round refrigerators with lazy Susan‑type shelving (they do exist, but they are pricey).

At first the vine‑ripened oddity struck me as heresy. But then I began to think of foie gras, veal–geese and calves have beating hearts, brains and feel pain–and we manipulate their natural growth to suit our appetites. So why not form a fruit that better conforms to the constraints of our cold storage space? 

And why stop with watermelon? Most fruit is round by nature’s design, but how much better would it be if peaches, apples, tomatoes and squash came in squares? They could be boxed, stacked and stored much more efficiently. And how about leeks? Try finding the proper space for leeks in your fridge. Talk about fitting a round peg into a square crisper drawer.

What about that Thanksgiving bird? Is there anything more commanding in your ice box in late November than a 20‑pound bird? Thick in the middle, slightly tapered at the ends. If you have a regular ice box like I do, the bird occupies an entire shelf, thereby necessitating the use of a cooler to store other Thanksgiving dishes. But how to raise a square turkey ...?

I would be pleased if chips came in a box like most crackers do. They would fit more neatly on pantry shelves and breakage would be minimal. Why haven’t the marketing geniuses at Poore Brother’s and Frito Lay figured that one out? Perhaps it’s a matter of economics. But I would gladly pay a bit extra for more dippable chips per purchase.

Canned goods are cylindrical, with the exception of Spam–but who wants to eat that?

Think about the condiments you store in your fridge (And why do we call it “fridge” for short when there is no letter “d” in its proper name?). Hot sauce, salsa, fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar and most jams and jellies come in cylindrical containers. For some reason steak sauce bottles have corners and I can’t explain that. My best guess is A‑1 began the trend and competitors felt the need to conform to the standard set.

With ice cream we have an option–it is packaged in both round and square containers. Milk is squarely stored, as is butter and much cheese (all dairy with the notable exceptions of cottage cheese and yogurt). Perhaps the dairy industry is ahead of the game on the storage conundrum. 

I notice lately that humans are becoming increasingly rotund, yet most homes remain fairly square, although they do seem to be getting more spacious to make room for this country’s ever‑expanding body type.

Most plates and bowls are round. So how come cabinets are square? Because kitchens have corners. I know, I know. But it strikes me as odd that we sometimes alter nature to meet our desires rather than adapting our living environment to accommodate nature.

To what lengths should we go to force the shape of nature? And aren’t food items with dips and curves and bends simply more seductive and sensual than their cornered counterparts?

I ponder the egg–highly symbolic–which is, in some ways, the perfect food: nutritious and tasty with countless methods of preparation, no killing required, a pure, self‑contained piece of nature, and although it is not perfectly round, its enticing curves and delicate shell render it highly susceptible to breakage. So much so, that eggs are packaged, shipped and stored in convenient, rectangular containers–not square exactly, but close enough.

We humans tend to put things into boxes–both literally and metaphorically. I wonder: if we just begin to accept nature’s designs rather than manipulate them, resist harsh angles in favor of gentle arcs and sloping curves, might we somehow become more in tune with the circle of life?