Another Memorial Day done.
How did I honor the losses and sacrifices made by and for war? With fresh boiled California-grown asparagus and a glass of asparagus juice, of course.
Huh?
According to Rebecca Roup in How Carrots Won the Trojan War, “in the early 1990s, the American government in an attempt to persuade Peruvian farmers to grow something other than coca – the immensely profitable raw material of cocaine – began to subsides Peruvian asparagus. Under the tenants of the Andean Trader preference Act (ATPA) passed in 1991 and renewed in 2002, Peru is allowed to export its asparagus to the Unites States for free – a financial advantage of such magnitude that American asparagus farmers, faced with it, have toppled like dominoes.”
And all that patriotism made my pee smell funny ….
Paul Christiansen 