EDIBLE COLORS

This photographic study of color introduces both widely known and unusual fruits and vegetables.

“Carrots are ORANGE. / They are also PURPLE. // Look what else can be PURPLE!” Against white backgrounds, crisp photographs are captioned with the produce’s common names. Purple Passion asparagus, Royal Burgundy beans and a Black Velvet apricot vie for readers’ eyes on a crowded double-page spread; layouts illustrating the colors blue and black feature fewer specimens and more white space. Unusual, well-chosen examples such as the Red Dacca banana, Louisiana Long Green eggplant, and the fabulous, many-tentacled Buddha’s Hand citron challenge readers’ assumptions about familiar fruits and veggies and expand their knowledge of rarer varieties. Bass’ groupings illustrate the fact that a color’s name approximates, rather than pinpoints, its essential attributes. Thus, the Adirondack Blue and Russian Blue potatoes could easily have joined the purple denizens rather than reside with the blues. And the Black Beauty eggplant and Jewel black raspberries are, arguably, highly pigmented versions of the color purple. Two kale varieties—Redbor and Lacinato—are captioned as “Redbar” and “Lacinto.” Clusters and groups are sometimes pluralized (“Jersey blueberries”), sometimes not (“Latham raspberry.”) There’s no attempt to depict scale—so a Calabrese broccoli is shown about half the size of a Bartlett pear.

Quibbles aside, this volume presents appetizing produce in an engaging array.