The Vegetable Orchestra is an ensemble founded in Vienna, Austria in 1988 who play instruments made of--you guessed?--vegetables, though supplemented by sound-generating implements such as turntables and power tools. Regardless the ensemble's name, they play not only art/classical music, but venture into from house, reggae, jazz, and experimental pieces. Before reading this question, had you known of the Vegetable Orchestra?

Cutting and pasting text into survey questions isn't my usual poll protocol, but the Veg' Orch's website gives what I believe to be a compelling, succinct description of what they do and, kind of, why. As their online poral says. "All the instruments used are exclusively made from vegetables: from fresh as well as dried plant material such as carrot, leek, celery root, artichoke, dried pumpkin and onion skin. All these components are used for building organic instruments and sound generators which usually only last for one concert or one day in the studio. In addition to the vegetables, various utensils like record players or power drills are used to create unusual noises and to add unexpected texture to the music. The sounds produced by the vegetable instruments are amazingly multi-layered: transparent & crackling, shrill and massive, dark and hypnotic, funky and groovy - a heterogeneous multitude of acoustic gems and strange, unfamiliar sounds whose organic origin is not always immediately recognizable. " Had you ever thought of making musical instruments of vegetables, much less the sound they would produce?

If you've watched the first question's accompanying this survey's first question, you should already know that the Veg' Orch' don't not eat the food they purchase and play before their concerts. They make a stew or soup of what's left of the produce they procure and play, to which their audience is invited to eat after the concert. Would you partake of a dish made of the remains of vegetables you just saw used t play music?

Though they share bounty of their grocery shopping expeditions with the audiences who see them platy (which, were it ever the case, won't be in North America for some while, if ever), I believe it's a fair question to ask. whether or not I agree: do you think the Vegetable Orchestra wastes food that could otherwise be eaten by others?