Behold, the Official State Vegetable of Oklahoma

Just about every U.S. state has an official bird. In Massachusetts, it’s the chickadee. Most states also have an official tree. (Ours is the American Elm.) There are others, like the official state mammal. (Massachusetts doesn’t have one of those.) And then there’s the official state vegetable. Not all states have declared one of these, but some have. In Louisiana, the official state vegetable is the sweet potato. It’s the same in North Carolina. In South Carolina, it’s collard greens. In Texas, the sweet onion. Utah’s is the Spanish sweet onion. And then there’s Oklahoma, who in 2007 declared their official state vegetable to be… the watermelon. Now, in order for something to become the “official” representative of a state, that state’s government or legislature usually has to get involved. That means someone in Oklahoma had an idea that the watermelon should be the state vegetable. That person presented the idea to Oklahoma politicians, who agreed and eventually made the declaration. All the while, the watermelon is sitting there saying “Uh… I’m actually a fruit. But whatever.” So I thought maybe they just made a mistake and meant to declare it the state fruit. Or maybe they meant to declare it the state “fruit and or vegetable”. I checked to see if Oklahoma has a state fruit. And they do. It’s the strawberry. Perhaps it’s some ploy to get kids to eat their vegetables. But I say, if Oklahoma can have the watermelon as the official state vegetable, I’m contacting my representatives to see if we can’t get Massachusetts to declare our state vegetable to be chocolate.