Real produce, real answers

What do you do about the tiny black bugs in the organic broccoli? asked a foodpickle writer.

I know the answer, but I couldn't bring myself to post it there.

We had these same tiny black bugs in our homegrown cauliflower when I was a kid. I would spend minute after minute at the kitchen sink, plunging the white heads into cold water and inspecting each and every floret.

This sort of effort was fruitless, and my father would tell me so. Then he showed me his way. Like me, he plunged the cauliflower under the water. Unlike me, he left it there and went to the cupboard. He returned to the sink, an open tin in his hand. He shook the tin above the surface of the water, let the cauliflower soak for a time, and then pulled the whole head from the sink before draining the water, grinning.

So to the foodpickle person, I say this: pepper the broccoli. No one will ever know the difference.