Not the only fruit
Carrots, that is. In fact, they’re not a fruit at all, and (whatever Tim Worstall says) the EU never suggested they were.
What carrots are is orange. They’re orange for entirely political reasons: in the sixteenth century, Dutch growers cultivated orange carrots as a tribute to William of Orange, and the colour stuck. A thousand years of yellow, white and purple carrot history, wiped out in a generation.
It could all have been so different.The colour ‘orange’ takes its name, not from the town of Orange (in France), but from the fruit – and ultimately from a Sanskrit word which was pronounced nagaruka or naranga and meant something like ‘fragrant’. The town, on the other hand, takes its name from a Gaulish phrase meaning, approximately, “tract of land in a valley”. (Not the most imaginative namers, your Gauls.)
Not only is the similarity between Orange and ‘orange’ a linguistic coincidence; the fact that William bore the name of Orange is a dynastic fluke. William’s family name was Nassau; Orange came into the family eighteen years before he was born, when his uncle Hendrik married Claudia of Chalon and Orange. If Hendrik had married somebody else – anybody else – William might still have inherited the title and become a hero of the Dutch war of independence, but he would have done so under the name of Nassau. It might not have done much to the history of the Netherlands, but it would have changed the colour of carrots – and of the right-hand stripe of the Irish flag.
The point is – and I’m sure you’re wondering – that decisions taken for immediate political reasons can have long-term effects, even if we’re measuring the long term in centuries. It may be a myth that the EU has regulated the curvature of bananas, but the commercial pressure for standardisation of fruit and vegetables is real. The drivers of standardisation are the major distributors and retailers – the supermarkets, essentially – but this marketplace is, like all marketplaces, a political arena. The pressures are commercial, but political institutions manage how they are expressed and limit how far they can go. And the EU has not distinguished itself in the resistance to commercial standardisation. If anything, it has helped the process along: European norms give suppliers an agreed set of parameters to work with; European subsidies, and their withdrawal, allow non-standard producers to be pushed out of the marketplace. And once it’s gone, it’s gone:
The names of the fallen. Foxwhelp, Sheep’s Snout, Hogshead, Duck’s Bill, Black Wilding, Brown Cockle, Monstrous Pippin, Burr Knot, Broadtail, Hagloe Crab, Eggleton Styre, Peasgood’s Nonesuch, Tom Putt, Bitter-scale, Slack-my-girdle, Bastard Rough Coat, Bloody Turk. The list runs into thousands.
The Hagloe Crab and the Monstrous Pippin have gone the way of the purple carrot. The process of standardisation, which has cut the enormous range of English apples down to five or ten varieties, isn’t something anyone voted for, and I doubt it’s something anyone would have wanted (There was a Miller’s Seedling, small, striped green and red, the juiciest, sweetest fruit I’ve ever eaten. “It used to fill the London markets, but today, because it’s small and doesn’t keep, no one’s interested.”) But it’s good for business, and what’s good for business is good for the EU.
Or take ‘market reforms’ in the public sector. A recent Private Eye let that particular cat out of the bag when it noted that the impact of the BBC strike would be strictly limited in several BBC ‘enterprises’, as they had already been sold off to companies like Siemens – which meant that the NUJ didn’t have official recognition. The story has got about that introducing competition into the public sector is all about greater ‘efficiency’. This, as far as I can see, translates roughly as ‘getting the same amount of work done less expensively’ – which in turn means making employees work longer hours for less money, and restricting their ability to resist. Again, I’m not sure that anyone voted for this – I’m pretty sure nobody would have wanted it (not for themselves, at any rate). But it’s good for business, and what’s good for business is good for the EU – which is why the draft EU Constitution contains (or contained) a clause specifically mandating member states to reconcile public services with the workings of the free market.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Apple varieties don’t have to be standardised out of existence; public sector unions don’t have to admit defeat. More specifically, the EU doesn’t have to be like this – after Sunday and Wednesday’s results, it really doesn’t have to be like this. The drive towards European integration on a neo-liberal model has been accompanied, on the Left, by a curious kind of political blackmail:
- European integration on these terms is currently the only available option
- as such, it’s supported by the main parties of the Left
- the main parties of the Left are opposed by the far Right and by sectarian ultra-leftists
- therefore opposing European integration on the current terms can only favour the far Right and the sectarian ultra-Left
Very similar things were said – in some cases by the same people – about voting Labour in May. It’s a persuasive bluff, but a bluff is all it is. This week it’s been called.
Sorry, Harry, but it has to be said: another Europe is possible, now more than ever.
(Does anyone know the Dutch for Avanti!)
Voorwaarts!
Nice adult commentary from the losing camp here: it’s all been a vote for cynicism, negativism, fear and hatred apparantely.
I had a purple carrot, once. It freaked me out.
William of Orange, however, was top. Even if he was a filthy usurper who didn’t respect the sanctity of the crown.
More sensible response after much coffee. Short version: well said.
Well, here’s the thing about carrots and fruit. The EU does indeed insist that when involved in the manufacture of jam, carrots are to be considered to be fruit. As are tomatoes, which they are of course, but when making salads tomatoes are to be considered as vegetables. This is because, at an earlier stage, the EU decided that jam was made from fruit….but the Portuguese make jam from carrots so therefore carrots must be fruit.
Similarly with the straight banana thing. Yes, the EU really does insist that bananas must not be of excessive curvature. Their defense that this is merely implementation of pre-existing OECD and UN classifications is true but misleading.
Ever since traders began to trade there have been attempts to define just exactly what is a what. Classifications, size, ripeness, cleanliness, breed, thickness, all part and parcel of the very process. This is fine.
What the EU has done is replace the voluntary interaction of traders with the criminal law. I have no problem with a supermarket deciding only to sell jam made from fruit. I have no problem with them telling suppliers that. Nor, with all supermarkets and all suppliers agreeing to make jam only from fruit. Nor with the classification of bananas.
I do have a problem with government stating that these rules, to benefit supermarkets and growers and traders, are now the criminal law of the continent (all and any breaches of these regulations are punishable by a fine of up to 5,000 quid and 6 months in jail. Yes, I did go the the relevant bureaucrat in the UK and ask him.).
The solution is simple. Any and every trade organisation can draw up a list of what it considers to be an acceptable definition of whatever. But the law stays well clear of it, allowing people to decide whether their bananas/jam meet the standards of a specific such body or not. And they be free to sell them and people be free to buy them even if they meet the standards of no organisation.
Back, in short, to the old common law idea that goods must be fit for the purpose and of merchantable quality. But as 23 of the EU members are Roman/Civil law in their commercial legal systems, not Common, that will never happen. Therefore we must leave.
Err, you:
“Carrots, that is. In fact, they’re not a fruit at all, and (whatever Tim Worstall says) the EU never suggested they were.”
The law:
“for the purposes of this Directive, tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes,
cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons are considered to be fruit,”
You might need the bendy banana rule:- “EU Regulation 2257/94 requires that bananas are at least
13.97cm (5.5in) long and 2.69cm (1.06in) round and do not have “abnormal curvature,” as set out in an eight-page directive drawn up in 1994.†The equivalent, much more prescriptive, rule for cucumbers is 1677/88.
Since Toni has said that these rules are myths, you really should have known that they’re not. They are Real Reality, as opposed to New Labour Reality.
P.S. The Worstall point “But as 23 of the EU members are Roman/Civil law in their commercial legal systems, not Common, that will never happen.” would be stronger if we had not survived perfectly well since 1707 with one jurisdiction using Common Law and the other using Scots, i.e. Roman-based, Law. Hoots, mon.
where can one buy a purple carrot?
If there are rules on bendy ‘nanas, and curved c’umbers, how come bifurcated carrots don’t have a rule ? Esther Rantzen would have lost her point if such a law had been introduced.
The system is evidently rotten and corrupt, you’ll be telling me they have Court of Human Rights next.
More on Dutch no vote: http://dearkitty.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=623095
Tim:
Err, you:
“Carrots, that is. In fact, they’re not a fruit at all, and (whatever Tim Worstall says) the EU never suggested they were.”
The law:
“for the purposes of this Directive, tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons are considered to be fruit,”
Yes, I know – I could hardly have read the piece I linked to without reading that text, could I? It doesn’t say what you say it does. It defines jam as made from fruit, then adds a clause to cater for exceptional cases where something which can reasonably be considered as jam is made of something other than fruit. The alternative would be to replace all occurrences of ‘fruit’ with ‘fruit (or other recognised primary jam constituent as listed in Annex A)’, and that would have caused just as many jokes.
The solution is simple. Any and every trade organisation can draw up a list of what it considers to be an acceptable definition of
whatever. But the law stays well clear of it, allowing people to decide whether their bananas/jam meet the standards of a specific
such body or not. And they be free to sell them and people be free to buy them even if they meet the standards of no organisation.
You’re almost making sense but not quite. As my mother used to say, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand/Make the milkman mighty and the grocer grand”. There’s a role for the state in setting minimum standards on behalf of purchasers; arguably European and national governments are doing too little of this type of intervention (cf. Super Size Me, Jamie’s School Twizzlers etc). We as a society should be able to decide that we don’t want to have crap sold to us dressed up as food. But straight-cucumber regulation isn’t about that at all, and isn’t conducted in the interests of purchasers. (Incidentally, thanks for the cite, dearie – I was going to include something about the single European cucumber, but I couldn’t find any evidence in time.)
“You’re almost making sense but not quite. As my mother used to say, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand/Make the milkman mighty and the grocer grandâ€Â.”
Both of these are covered in:
“Back, in short, to the old common law idea that goods must be fit for the purpose and of merchantable quality.”
Roman Law in Scotland and Common in England and Wales. Yes, I’d forgotten that point but doesn’t obviate mine. As the EU is setting laws for the entire EU they are inevitably using Roman as the basis to do so. There must be such definitions written into law for other wise how would people know what they may do? To which the Common law answer is “Whatever the law does not say they may not do”.
I should point out that if bananas cannot be of “abnormal curvature”, that implies such a thing as “normal curvature”, or to put it another way, that they have to be bendy by law! Presumably a banana that was straight, with curvature = 0, would be one of abnormal curvature and hence unfit for sale?
Thank God you don’t work in telecoms, Tim; I can just see you at ETSI-TISPAN, barking “I demand a common-law telephone system for a Protestant people! If you’re setting protocols to work across Europe, you will inevitably use alien Roman engineering as the basis to do so.”
“I’m sorry. It has not been possible to connect your call. Please try again later. I’m sorry. It..”
…I demand a common-law telephone system for a Protestant people!…
The difference is that there are no compatability problems when it comes to carrots.
But you accept that a straight banana would display abnormal curvature and hence be illegal?
I actually thought the phrase was “excessive curvature” for the banana.
Alex,
Why a Catholic would demand a Proddie phone system is beyond me.
Offtopic-ish but, it has to be said
The nicest apples are “Spartan”.
Lovely. Made my day (which is saying something)