When I first learned there was a kind of lettuce called radicchio, a little more than a decade ago, I was delighted by the word. It struck my non-Italian-speaking ear as sounding like the Italian word for ridiculous.

Long a lover of the ridiculous, of absurdist what-if scenarios and the invention of imaginary friends, I conceived of the kind of personage who would bear the name Radicchio.

Imagine the scene:

It is Medieval Italy and a local prince is very unhappy indeed. Perhaps a subject has displeased him by straining the nobleman's ears once too many times with a complaint against his neighbor. Or perhaps he has discovered that a local merchant has been roundly cheating his customers, slipping small metal weights onto the scales that help him tally up the price for grain and cuts of meat.

Full of righteous anger and of the desire to punish the scoundrel in such a way that the offense will not be repeated, the prince claps his hands twice. It is time for the terrible. It is time for the unimaginable. It is time for. . .Radicchio.

Clap! Clap! "Bring out Radicchio," he orders. Though you may not speak Italian, try trilling the "r"s in this phrase to get a feeling for the gravity and finality of the pronouncement. And who is this Radicchio?

Clad in motley tights, a maroon velvet tunic, pointed shoes and a jester's cap, all embellished with stridently jangly brass bells, Radicchio is-in short-the world's most awful comedian. Yes, he is the most energetically unfunny and consistently annoying jester of all time.

Happily unaware that he is being employed as an instrument of torture, Radicchio rejoices in the fact that he has been called to perform in the great room, in front of his noble lord and an appreciative villager. He prances into the room, kicks up heels, executes an unwieldy cartwheel and then commences to sing a droll little song.

The villager begins to weep.

Learn more about this author, Sarah Torribio.
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