The Problem with Produce

Home Food Safety

I have been officially moved out of my parents’ house for a little over a year now. One of the struggles I still face in my independent life is wasting food. My boyfriend and I go to the grocery store with the best intentions of a weekly meal plan, but sometimes that produce just never gets used, and into the trash it goes – along with the money spent on it. Living with the modern convenience of a refrigerator, I find myself putting anything and everything in the fridge to keep it from spoiling. However, many fruits and vegetables actually store better outside of the fridge. There are so many rules on what goes in the fridge, what stays out, and which fruits and vegetables can’t be kept with others – I just can’t retain it all! I’m slowly learning, but until I’m certain, I’ll keep referring to some handy infographics.

When I pull a wilted cabbage from the crisper, you can bet that the last thing I am thinking is ooh, how artistic. However, Juan Sánchez Cotán was able to transform rotting produce into a swooping, energetic composition that was characteristic of the 17th-century Baroque movement.

Obviously, there were no refrigerators in Spain during the 1600s. The Spanish people kept their fruits and vegetables in basements or dark cupboards. They often hung their produce to slow the rotting process since fruits and vegetables will bruise and soften where they rest. Cotán used this practice to his advantage, hanging the fruit to create a C-shaped arc – adding needed movement to his composition.
 

Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber by Juan Sánchez Cotán ca. 1602 

According to my favorite food sources, the produce in Cotán’s painting, Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, would all do the best in a refrigerator. Because all he had was a dark cupboard, it’s only natural that you can see the decay on Cotán’s food – especially in the curling leaves of the cabbage and the bruised quince. In Italy, it was common practice to idealize all elements in a painting, meaning these fruits and veggies would be at peak ripeness. Caravaggio, an Italian Baroque painter, broke this tradition. Influenced by the Northern European interest in surfaces, Caravaggio became a pioneer of Naturalism in the South. He spent some time painting in Naples, which was ruled by Spain. (Let’s not mention that he was in Naples to flee arrest for murder.) The viceroy shipped Caravaggio’s paintings to Spain, and painters like Cotán quickly adopted his realistic style.

Cotán’s naturalism also played to another influence – that of St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius wrote a book called Spiritual Exercises, which spelled out practices for daily devotion. He taught that a devotional image of art should spark the five senses to help a person visualize all aspects of a saintly life. New to Catholicism, Spain was eager to adopt the ideas of St. Ignatius and heavily patrolled for heresy (Spanish Inquisition, anyone?). Although not inherently religious, Cotán’s painting works to engage the senses. By slicing the melon, he invites the smell of a fresh cantaloupe. Can you imagine biting into that juicy slice? What about the crunch of the cucumber? Can you recall the feeling of a wilted cabbage leaf between your fingers? Do you smell the sickly sweet of the rotting quince? Take a minute to connect to the painting and see what memories pop up.


Sources:
Doot Bokelman, "Art History Survey II" (lecture, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY, Spring 2012).
Doot Bokelman, "17th Century Baroque Art" (lecture, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY, Spring 2014).