By Terry Kovel Fresh vegetables were part of the diet of the
Victorian household during the warm, growing months. But stored
root vegetables and home canned food were used on snowy days.
Advertisers knew that imaginary vegetables acting like humans
were as popular a fantasy as fairies, elves, brownies, pixies
and gnomes. Few color pictures were available. Magazines and
newspapers were printed in black and white. But in the 1880s,
retail stores advertised with colored trade cards, about 6-inch-
by-2-1/2-inch, that were saved and often put in scrapbooks.
There were many different anthropomorphic fruit and vegetable
cards. Humanized veggies were pictured not only in the U.S. but
also in England, Germany, France and Italy. The comic figures
with human bodies often had names, Mr. Prune, The Baldwin Twins
(apple heads) or Mr. Pumpkin. And there often was a funny
caption, like two strawberry heads asking "What are you doing in
my bed?" The trade cards are not the only place for veggie
people. Vegetable people postcar