he Accidental Cook^ >^ Broad beans.
By Russell Norman
“I ate his liver with some fava beans
and a nice chianti.” — Dr Hannibal Lecter,
he Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Nature has its way of warning us when we
are in danger. he black and yellow stripes of
a wasp are so efective a signal to stay away that
we have replicated them in the human world,
too: health-and-safey “Caution wet floor”
signs, “Police do not cross” tape — and Ali G’s
tracksuit. he fact that SpongeBob SquarePants
and Lady Gaga also favour black and yellow
is further proof, if it were needed, that this is
a colour combination that signals danger.Red is similarly foreboding. It means stop
(just look at traic lights the world over) but
it also means, “Eat this and you might die.”
he poisonous dart frog of Central America
certainly communicates this rather efectively
with its bright red back. And a single bite of
the red-gilled mushroom known ominously
as “Satan’s Bolete” will efectively turn your
stomach inside out. Buon appetito!
Green, however, is good. It symbolises life
and vitaliy. It is the colour nature decided to
give to chlorophyll, that miraculous chemical
that causes all plants to resonate with the
frequency that sits right in the middle62 Photograph by Dan Burn-Forti Style