I’ve done exhaustive research on this.
Okay, I scribbled some lists of the best, and then I saw an article in the newspaper on the top ten vegetables. In a survey of 2,559 households conducted last January, the National Gardening Association listed their ten most popular garden vegetables, and in second place, 47% of them listed: cucumbers. Cucumbers.
Be serious. Cucumbers taste like what happens when grass gets too much water.
It just so happens that I’ve doodled the list of the ten best vegetables in the world, and I’m prepared to share. (The list, if not the veggies.) Botanical note: the gardeners’ list includes tomatoes as a vegetable and so do I. I know, really a fruit, seeds on the inside, some controversy involving reclassification pertaining to imports and exports with Mexico last century, yadda, yadda. I’m not only counting tomatoes as a vegetable, they’re toward the top of my list:
1. Corn. Fresh corn, not over-cooked, with some butter and a little pepper and salt is almost religion, it’s so good. Boiling is okay, but grilling is better. Corn is so good it’s almost it’s own category: vege-sert or desser-getable.
2. Onions. Especially red onions. They make almost anything better. I even slice them crosswise, so the concentric circles all hold together, and put them on the grill. You have to be patient and just turn the slice over once (you can’t flip it a lot or it all falls apart), but they cook up wonderfully. Sweet! Just a bit of Italian dressing, and it’s a great side dish all by itself. Onions may have a potent reputation, but when you think about it, they go in lots of dishes and play nice with many other foods.
3. Tomatoes. They can be heavenly good. All kinds. It’s sad what’s happened to store-bought tomatoes over the years; they’ve lost their flavor. Growing your own reminds you how delicious tomatoes can be. Another vegetable that plays nice with others.
4. Asparagus. I don’t recall liking asparagus as a kid. Too strong and grassy a taste–but as an adult I’ve learned to love asparagus, especially braised (tho’ steaming al dente is fine), and splurging on some proscuitto too wrap around the spears is heavenly.
5. Peas. Snap peas, snow peas, it’s all good. During the holidays there has to be a bowl of peas with pearl onions on the table, it’s a tradition.
6. Broccoli. Another one I don’t remember liking much as a kid, but in college I came to love broccoli. Probably because it was something I liked in university cafeteria salad bars. Like asparagus, over-cooking is a pity and a waste; al dente is wonderful.
7. Romaine lettuce. Simply put, the backbone of a wonderful salad.
8. Carrots. Another vegetable that’s great on the grill. They also get very sweet.
9. Spinach. Not a big fan of cooked spinach, but raw it’s wonderful as the base for salads.
10. Ripe bell peppers. After tasting ripe yellow, orange, or red bell peps, and finding out that green bell peppers are just unripe versions of the same, green peppers just tasted unripe to me. I love red bell peps–they can really add flavor and zing to a pasta sauce.
Honorable mention: Celery, squash, zucchini, black beans. Butternut squash in particular can be blissful — but a top ten list means … choices must be made.
Have I forgotten anything?
OmbudsBen 
We are so on the same page about veggies. I thought I was the only one who felt that way about cucumbers. Only really like them splashed with Japanese vinegar and ground pepper. This year I sneaked a few tomato, Italian eggplant, okra and RED pepper in my wildlife garden. Hey, I feed the wildlife, what about me? It has been heavenly eating REAL tomatoes and veggies without pesticides fresh from the garden.
Don’t forget how well carrots taste from the microwave with a little honey and thyme. Heavenly, quick and easy.
–GOOD, how GOOD carrots taste.
Tomatoes are my number one veggie/fruit love. I don’t get enough sun due to neighbors trees and houses, so I’ve given up the heartbreak of trying to grow my own. I agree with you about the tomatoes at the grocery store. Blech. In summer and early fall, we get our tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market. The rest of the time, I buy the little clamshell of “campari tomaotes” at Safeway, or else I buy cherry tomatoes. They’re not as good as a wonderful summer tomato from the farmers’ market, but they’re better than the rest of the tomatoes at the store.
I am not a fan of celery, but I do like cucumbers. Which are also a fruit. And if a vegetable with seeds inside is a fruit, then so are bell peppers, right? I think that I got anal on this in a fit of bordom a few years ago, and learned that fruit/vegetable is not an either or. They’re all vegetables, but some of them are also the subset of fruits. Or maybe I have that backwards. Other subsets might be grasses (which asparagus is) or grains (like corn).
Mmmm. Corn. I’m with you on that one, but I think tomatoes are above corn for me. Together, a dinner that includes a nice tomato and basil salad and corn on the cob is HEAVEN.
Next time we grill (Friday), I’m going to try your red onion trick. Yummy.
I agree on all of your list except celery. Its that stringy texture. Ugh.
And I am English so of course I like cucumber sandwiches. With butter, on white bread. On one of the only 3 sunny days of an English Summer.
Anhinga, your microwave carrots with honey and thyme sounds very intriguing. Slice them lengthwise, or into coins? I might try to cook them first, then add the honey and thyme at the end to warm it a bit.
J, with all the sun you get out in Co-Co county, it’s just criminal that you can’t grow tomatoes. You should be given a little plot of land *somewhere* out there, because you are in better tomato territory than we are.
T-Woo, I have to admit, almost all of the celery I eat is in soup or some other recipe.
But thinking about it reminds me of a great childhood recipe: bumps on a log. You fill the “trough” of the celery with peanut butter, then line up raisins on top of that. Very tasty.
As for cucumber sandwiches–I’d try one, but I hope it’s very flavorful bread.
I either slice carrots in coins (more flavor on each bite) or use the baby carrots.
I think I could go for cucumber sandwiches (good textural variety), but would need whole wheat bread.