Why don't you like vegetables, Mr. Harper?
- September 9, 2008 11:49 AM |
- By Amber Hildebrandt
by Amber Hildebrandt, CBCNews.ca
In the midst of the election campaign flurry of trading barbs and making promises, a TV reporter shot an all-consuming question at Stephen Harper on Tuesday: What vegetable are you?
Stephen Harper answers reporters questions during a campaign stop at a vegetable processing plant in Winnipeg. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)
The Conservative leader paused and looked around at the vegetables behind him at the food terminal where he was making a fuel tax announcement.
Then he said he didn’t feel he could win by answering the question and instead chose to paint himself as a fruit because, like him, they are "sweet and colourful."
Which leads me to wonder: What's wrong with vegetables?
Why not choose to be a long-lasting, versatile potato? Or a tomato, bridging the gap between vegetables and fruits? Or even a crisp cucumber? Or an unyielding carrot? Any vegetable would do, except for a beet, of course.
Perhaps we should leave it up to the electorate to decide. In your opinion, what vegetable is Harper?
About the Authors
- Elizabeth Bridge is a producer with CBC's Digital Archives project. She got her start in the kitchen baking brownies and making fudge but is still trying to get pastry right.
- Andrea Chiu
is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
- Amber Hildebrandt
works for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and foodie ways.
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
- Andree Lau
is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
- Jessica Wong
is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
- Kevin Yarr
, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
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Comments (17)
PM Harper is a pumpkin.
Iceberg lettuce. Seems crunchy and good, but actually has little nutritional value.
Nah. Harper is a good, middle-class potato. Kinda boring, but filling, nutritious and a good value for the money.
Harper is definitely a stalk of celery. Hard and crisp without much suubstance. When it come to addressing the issues of poverty and closing the between the rich and poor all he has to offer is water.
Definitely cabbage: boring, mostly filling, but with unpleasant after effects...
George Bush Senior didn't like broccoli, so I guess that it's a right-wing thing. On the other hand I had a chuckle by the tone that Harper used to answer the question. At least someone is having fun on this unnecessary election.
Now let's try a free association exercise:
Dion: Asparagus
Layton: Carrot
Duceppe: Onion
May: Avocado
Harper: Cucumber (for similar reasons expressed by previous commenters)
That is a recycled joke originally about Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet ministers, "the vegetables".
Cool as a Cucumber but frequently gets into a PICKLE!
Harper is definitely a cucumber: cool but often gets himself in a pickle.
Mr. Harper is very clever and very quick. If he had said he was a vegetable, the obvious twist would have been "He's a dolt." The media would have pounced on it and made fun of him for weeks, with all the puns, nicknames, cartoons and other silly nonsense that the media seems so focused on these days. He's smart to say he's a fruit, because if the media made fun of the most obvious twist to that choice, it would have incurred the wrath of certain communities, and the media are the ones that would have ended up looking stupid. Mr. Harper is sharp indeed. Now go ask Dion and Layton what they are.
Harper is definitely not certified organic, whatever he is... though I'm certain that he has been modified with Monsanto's round-up ready gene to withstand extensive spraying with pesticides which leaves only his ilk standing in a sea of decaying vegetation.
His answer has gone over big in Hedy Fry's riding. He reminds us of the old Burrard Bridge Joke.
I don't know what all the fuss is about. I support Harper's right to choose to be a 'sweet and colourful' fruit if he wants to be.
PM Harper is a wilted head of lettuce namely iceberg the stuff you can get from California with basically no value accept that it has been shipped all over costing everyone
He's neither vegetable nor fruit. They're generally good for people, and Steve's clearly not good for most of us. Maybe he's a fungus!
Potato. Strong, nothing fancy, but very versatile. Cheap, filling and reasonably nutritious.
Over boiled, previously frozen, peas and carrots.