The False Freshness of a Microgreen

They arrive like clockwork.
Boxed. Tender. Trimmed.
Little vegetal trophies—too delicate to wash, too pristine to question.

They don’t taste like anything. They rarely belong.
But they look fresh, and that’s what matters.

The pea tendril atop the charred beef.
The radish sprout on the panna cotta.
The amaranth, the shiso, the sorrel—perfect little decals for a chef’s composition, pretending to connect it to the seasons.

Only they don’t.
They’re grown year-round under lights. Shipped in by the tray.
Uniform, sterile, and far removed from anything resembling a field.

We add them because we were told they mean something.
Brightness. Greenery. Life.
But they often mean nothing at all.

They’re the garnish equivalent of background music: expected, ignorable, and rarely missed when gone.

It’s not that microgreens are bad.
It’s that they’re often the only “fresh” element on a plate that’s otherwise technique-heavy, time-warped, and entirely disconnected from the time of year.

A dish in mid-winter wears a miniature garden.
A dead root gets a clover crown.
A plated story ends with a sprout that says, “I didn’t know how else to finish this.”

Maybe it’s time we stop pretending they’re a shortcut to seasonality.
And just let the plate be bare, if that’s what it is.