I really enjoyed the etymology part of this post, but I think the last part was overstated:
> How many of us outside of industrial agriculture can picture what the whole plant looks like, unharvested?
I'm sure that for many vegetables, most people can. If nothing else, vegetables are a very popular subject for children's books. You see pictures of cartoon rabbits plucking carrots from the ground, apples on trees, pumpkins on the vine. Sure, people might be surprised at a few like asparagus & peanuts, but for the most part, people have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what type of plant their vegetable came from.
I'm pretty certain that all these "kids these days don't know what chips are made from" news from BBC and the likes is just survey trolling aka "mischievous responders".
When I was a kid living in the country, we were told that most city people think chocolate milk comes from brown cows.
I am sure that's the same sort of myth as not knowing where chips come from, because I moved to the city in the early 90's (and now live in a metropolis!), and I've never met a person who believed that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Likewise everyone I know seems to have heard the claim, and just consider it a silly joke about how out of touch city people supposedly are.
I'm so conditioned to fill in the blanks that HN auto-title-moderator makes, that in my head I added "this" and expected AI-generated vegetables... or shall I say "vicootes"? ;)
> How many of us outside of industrial agriculture can picture what the whole plant looks like, unharvested?
I'm sure that for many vegetables, most people can. If nothing else, vegetables are a very popular subject for children's books. You see pictures of cartoon rabbits plucking carrots from the ground, apples on trees, pumpkins on the vine. Sure, people might be surprised at a few like asparagus & peanuts, but for the most part, people have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what type of plant their vegetable came from.