My little cousin likes to pretend he's a giant eating trees when he has broccoli...This sort of came out of that when I thought how odd broccoli must look to someone who's never seen it before.
The Mercora are not mine, by the way, so bonus points if you get the reference!
(Neither is Doctor Who mine, but then you knew that already...)
Jamie sat down at the dinner table, cautiously optimistic about tonight's dinner. The food was always quite good when Polly was making it, safe, if a little bit dull when it was Ben's turn, but sometimes the Doctor felt the need to cook, and Jamie had seen some strange things come across his plate in the past few weeks. Once they had eaten something called a 'taco', which had spicy meat and bits of leaves inside a crunchy shell. It was a bit messy, especially after the Doctor smeared a green pasty stuff over the top of it, but it was actually quite good. Another time though, he had served them a slimy purple thing that wriggled about on the plate and vaguely resembled a cabbage with legs. He informed them that it was a delicacy on a planet called Moray 4, and had dug in with relish. A tiny bite off one of the legs had been enough to turn Jamie's stomach, and he had pushed the plate away in disgust as the offended leg snatched his fork out of his hand and started waving it about. Fortunately for his ego, Ben and Polly had seemed equally put off by the food. Ben hadn't even been able to bring himself to taste it.
Tonight, however, Polly was cooking. It smelled delicious, and Jamie sat down safe in the knowledge that no alien beasties would be crawling across his plate tonight. Indeed, the meat and potatoes she dished up seemed downright homey to Jamie, although the third thing she put on his plate caught him off guard. He had no idea what those could be. In fact, if he looked at them from the right angle…Well that was just strange, was what that was.
The Doctor looked across the table at Jamie, who had brought his head down level with the table and was studying his plate with great concentration. He couldn't help but smile as he asked, "Something the matter, Jamie?"
"No." Jamie let out a little sigh. "I'm sorry, Polly. It's just I didn't know we'd be havin' alien food tonight."
"Alien? What are you talking about?" she asked, raising an amused, if slightly puzzled eyebrow.
"These wee trees here," he said, pointing to his plate. "I've no' seen the like before."
Polly laughed. "That's broccoli, Jamie." When he didn't react, she went on. "It's a perfectly normal Earth vegetable," she assured him.
"Oh," he said, looking relieved. "Well tha's alright then. Just so long as it's no' going t' attack me wi' my own fork." He shot a sly look at the Doctor as Ben and Polly laughed.
"Actually Jamie," the Doctor said, folding his hands in front of him. "Broccoli is grown on Earth, yes, but it's not technically what you would call an Earth vegetable."
Jamie paused with his fork suspended over the broccoli he'd been about to try. "How's that, then?"
"Broccoli is farmed on Earth because it grows so well there, but originally, it was imported to Earth by a race called the Mercora, oh…tens of thousands of years before you were born, it must have been."
"What?!" Ben demanded, choking on his own broccoli. "How do you mean 'imported'?"
"Just as I said, Ben, the Mercora brought it with them," the Doctor explained patiently. "It was a failed colonization attempt, you see. The whole colony was wiped out within months of their arrival, and now, alas, only the broccoli remains." He nibbled thoughtfully on a floret.
"You mean to tell me that my whole life, I've grown up eating something from outer space?" Ben asked in disbelief.
"Of course. You mean to say you don't know that?" The Doctor matched Ben's disbelief with his own as Ben and Polly shook their heads. "Gracious me, what sort of things do they teach you in school?"
Ben eyed his broccoli with suspicion. "No offence, Duchess, but I don't know if I can quite manage broccoli tonight," he said, casting an apologetic eye at Polly.
She waved his apology away. "That's quite alright, Ben. I don't think I'll be finishing mine either." The Doctor shook his head in exasperation, but said nothing.
An awkward silence stretched over the table as they dug into the meat and potatoes. It was broken suddenly by a loud crunch from the end of the table. Jamie looked up as they all turned to stare at him. "What?" he asked, after swallowing a particularly large piece of broccoli. "For an alien vegetable, it's no' bad at all. It's a fair sight better than that okra we had last week, I'll tell ye that. Y' still cannae convince me that those were from Earth." He pointed his fork accusingly at the Doctor. Everyone laughed, and the jovial atmosphere was restored, although the end of the meal found a good portion of broccoli in the bin.