Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990 TAG: 9003270354
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As the first lady surveyed the scene and tried, without success, to keep a straight face, George Dunlop, president of the Washington-based United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, waxed metaphorical.
The broccoli, most of which is being donated to a capital-area food bank, is "a green beam of light" emanating from one of President Bush's famous thousand points of light, he said as he presented the first lady with a beribboned vegetable bouquet.
"Millie and I thank you for the broccoli. We'll eat it," the first lady said. But as for her husband, the president, "If his own blessed mother can't make him eat broccoli, I give up."
For her part, "I am never going to eat pork rinds, ever," she said, referring to a high-salt snack food with which the president makes a point of being photographed during political campaigns but otherwise almost never eats.
All this began when Bush told stewards on Air Force I that he never wanted to see broccoli on his plate again. Last week, he escalated matters, declaring that his mother had made him eat the stuff when he was a kid and now, "I'm president of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."
The broccoli growers, not giving up on a potential customer, sent along a sheet of recipes, on appropriately green paper, for broccoli stir-fried, sauced, baked, souped or casserolled. Meantime, the capital's omnipresent corps of commentators, who have had little else to chew on recently, have busily spent the last few days on a harder task - trying to turn broccoli into a political indicator. Theories have been spinning faster than flowerets in a Cuisinart.
Will the broccoli flap cost Bush votes among parents with vegetable-averse children? "My own children have checked in with a little bit of criticism," Barbara Bush said.
by CNB