Superstring Beans

Final day of Summer for me. Second day of my return home from travelling. Market Day! Time for a trip to the market to get supplies for the first week of the semester.

The loot (which includes, hidden under the leeks, some of the last of the white peaches of the season from the peach people I like):

Be sure to note (click on right for larger) these extra extra long beans- Superstring beans I think they must be called (quickly goes back and changes the working title of the post).

(“Chinese long beans” the lady selling them said. My first thought: Sure. Trick from produce-seller-101. If you ever want to sell a slightly unusual-looking vegetable, just make up a name like “Chinese something-or-other”, or “Guatemalan doo-dad”. But it is actually an accepted name, along with yardlong bean, asparagus bean, snake bean, etc. I prefer superstring bean henceforth. Given the popularity of string theory in the popular conciousness now (the horror!)… it might catch on…)

Some other pictures (click on thumbnail for larger):

-cvj

(Update: On reflection (hot Sunday afternoon and don’t want to think about planning the busy week ahead) maybe I should have called them “Cosmic String Beans” since they are much larger than normal string beans, as opposed to having an extra remarkable internal symmetry…. at this point, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one still following the joke, which was already stretching it.)