Back to the menu in the Gastronomic series, and time for the aptly titled ‘Vegetable Orchestra’. As the name suggests, it’s all about using vegetables as musical instruments.

The Sonar Lab

Somehow the idea didn’t quite translate, with many of the instruments sounding nothing more than a bunch of wet kazoos, and I guess that’s why we’ve since moved on from playing gourds and conch shells in times of old. I’m always up for a gimmick but it seemed our ten member group, the Vegetable Orchestra, were taking the whole thing very, very seriously.

The Vegetable Orchestra

I was hoping at the end they would chop up their ‘instruments’ to make a nice, healthy minestrone soup to share around the audience, in a final, nihilistic statement of the futility of using vegetables as instruments. No such luck – undoubtedly they needed them for their next show in the London Philharmonic’s Cabbage Symphony No. 5.

Predictably, the next day started late, with a glazed, hung over feeling from the previous evening of drinking and holiday celebration. This was easily cured by a visit to the beach for fresh air, some tasty Catalonian treats, and a nice, strong, black coffee.