Zucchini

as in

"I don't like zucchini."

Variations: "What’s zucchini when he’s at home? ... I don’t like sunrises / sunsets / sunbathing / backgammon / Christmas / Leonard Cohen ... I love zucchini / sunrises / sunsets / etc."

What? Even his taste buds have complexities? It should be so easy - "You don’t like zucchini, we won’t have any zucchini" - but it isn’t like that. What he is trying to tell you is that he rejects a whole lifestyle that he associates with "zucchini". A cosy, pouncey, vegan world of pseuds.

Because he is a much simpler, down-to-earth kind of guy. No need for you to fuss about to please him. Give him a plate stacked with meat and potatoes with a slice of sex afterwards and he will be happy as Larry.

"Zucchini" works especially well for him in this form of communication because, as likely as not, he is unsure what it is, which means he can dismiss it without the slightest hesitation, a bit like he does gentleness and rationale argument.

Secondly, "zucchini", unlike potatoes and tomatoes, sounds foreign (in fact, of course, all three are), and allows him to have a dig at what he regards as all those poor backward people who hail from other countries. "You know," he is saying, pleading for your complicity, "all those sad bastards in Europe and
beyond who never have a proper piss up and brawl."

Conversely, if he tells you he loves "zucchini", in addition to his culinary interests, he is trying to convey that he admires a whole different lifestyle that he links with it, a cultivated, luxurious, realm of sensitive souls that he identifies with because he is, in case you hadn’t already noticed, a sophisticated, worldly, debonair sort of lad. If you press him, he might even admit to having listened to some
Leonard Cohen at least once.

For these reasons it is worthwhile introducing "zucchini" into a meal - or at least into a conversation - early in a relationship.