The people of the Land of Great Vegetation had enjoyed centuries of prosperity. Lives relished in shade and abundant oxygenation, with unlimited fruits, vegetables, and a myriad of fruit salad and salad salad variations. They were a regular people, yet with wealth rooted in the land and literally growing on trees.
Until The Great Slaying. Not the annual feast where they mixed up their first fruits with extra dressing in a 10-foot diameter bowl and dived in naked…that’s “The Grand Slawing.” Rather, The Great Slaying more formally called “The Great Larval Slaying Event.” Compost management laws have since been enacted to prevent future outbreaks, and crop production is slowly on the mend. Iceberg lettuce was hit the hardest.
With little vegetation to eat, the people looked back to their history, to a time when plants hadn’t yet been bred to be so prolific and yummy; a time when, instead, animals roamed the land, and their ancestors ate them. The Pre-GV Era, some called it. Some even said this was fortuitous, to return to the nutrition that fueled their pioneering predecessors. In short time, fiber, potassium, and vitamins A and C felt unfashionable, while red meat and saturated fat became the buzz.
But what could substitute for a wonderful, crunchy, wedge salad? Lettuce seemed now to be in their DNA; franchises were built around it. Foreign peoples had even assimilated into the LGV, some chains serving spicy lettuce rolls and others offering chopped fermented bowls of the stuff, but it was all lettuce nonetheless, and regardless of origin, all identified as LGVP (Land of Great Vegetation Proud). Could these formative dining experiences now be replicated using meat?
Fortunately, bright nanoscientists soon proposed ways to use animal flesh as source material, rearranging its molecules and strands through heat-cycling and electromagnetic manipulation, with the help of tiny weaving machines made from nice viruses (all were assured). They would replicate the texture, color and taste of the people’s beloved staples, branding “Beyond Plant” products and offering “The Improbable Wedge.”
It took a while to work out the production kinks, and to bribe enough individuals to beam on camera, “I can’t even tell the difference!” but the new diet started to catch on. The change might have become permanent had crop production not recovered, but those ag scientists were bright as well. As such, the original wedge was never discontinued and sold increasingly via delivery apps—so nobody had to be seen ordering it. Besides that, the nation liked being called the LGV and changing the name would’ve been a bureaucratic impossibility in the current Congress. So, the Land of Great Vegetation eventually went back to being just that, and people ate real salads guilt free.
Copyright © 2022 Richard Berndt – All Rights Reserved.
Leave a Reply