When one works up close and personal with plants on a farm, one sees the remarkable expansiveness of a given type of plant. Garlic for example has its huge shoots, which can be chopped up and cooked, and the flowering portion of the plant, the scape, can be picked and then boiled and sauteed to delicious effect. Similarly beet plants have huge leaves which taste pretty good, and can be picked and made into salad.
In the grocery store, all of these things become radically separated from each other. The desired part of the plant, say the bulb of the beet or the garlic clove, is chopped away and presented in a stark state of separation, and one loses sense of the plant itself. One's concept of the plant is chopped down and pared to the simple exchange object, or desire object which is traded in the market.
The extent of this separation, and the awareness people have of various plants varies across regions and cultures, but one wonders about where all of the rest of this plant matter is disappearing to?
