Fruit Salad Manifesto

Just before my husband fell asleep last night he verbally made a Fruit Salad Manifesto. I am not sure what prompted this manifesto other than the fact that we attended a New Year’s Eve party where fruit salad was served. After knowing him for 12 years as a lover of fruit, I was shocked to hear his declaration. It has been his mission in life to actively incorporate fruit into a meal, dessert, or snack whenever physically possible. My husband is obsessed with fruit–particularly apples. He has been known to eat 4 or 5 a day when they are readily available. When we visit foreign countries he obsesses over the idea of smuggling back fruit for the sole purpose of enjoying it on the plane ride home. Rest assured that I have prevented this crime, fearing some tropical disease might be transported back with his beloved apples from places like Ireland and Germany.

His manifesto began because he fears that fruit is being discriminated against. Unlike vegetables, it is carelessly chopped up and thrown together to create “a wet, liquid, mess.” He advocates the same rights for fruit that vegetables possess: to be carefully sliced and placed in an organized manner on a tray. I suspect that his concerns with fruit salad stem from his obsession with apples. His first complaint with the fruit salad served on New Year’s Eve was that the apples were diced so small that you could only taste skin and not the fleshy goodness of the apple. I do agree with this criticism; the pieces were so finite it was almost as if the apple was spun through a snow cone maker. Another complaint was that the defenseless apples were thrown in haphazardly with much more resilient fruit like melons and oranges and left to brown as we waited for the ball to drop. I had never heard him use such harsh words in regards to fruit. He even went so far as to question the sanity of the first person in history to make a fruit salad.

I don’t know what brought about this conversation at 11:30 pm and why we were reflecting on something we ate 7 days later, but I found humor in his vehemence. I must confess that I myself have been guilty of serving fruit salad, never considering the individual rights of each piece, but I have learned from this and hereto resolve to remedy this matter based on the newly introduced Fruit Salad Manifesto. By the way, who makes Fruit Salad for New Year’s Eve anyway?