“Ah say you’re wrong, ‘an I’ll prove it!”
Twilight’s ears perked. The sound of an argument outside the library door was less unusual than she would have liked, and as often as not, it was Applejack’s voice. Twilight had been a mediator for her arguments with Rainbow on more than one occasion, after all.
“There’s gotta be a book in the library that’ll show you Ah’m right and yer wrong.”
She furrowed her brow. A book? Most of AJ’s arguments with Rainbow involved physical prowess, rather than something which might be found in a book. Although, it was nice that the headstrong farmer had considered settling her argument with research, and as the best librarian—technically, only librarian—in Ponyville, it was her duty to settle the argument. She rubbed her hooves together. Why, there might be a good friendship lesson in this!
“Nopers! Books won’t settle this.”
“Ah’ll let Twi be the judge of that.” The door swung open, revealing Applejack and—oddly enough—Pinkie Pie.
“Got a bit of a debate goin’ on here, Twi.” Applejack pulled off her hat. “Pinkie here says chives are food, an’ Ah say they’re seasoning.”
Twilight’s mouth dropped open, and she stared at the pair dumbly.
“Yeah! They’re food. You can eat them, and they’re in a lot of yummy dishes.”
“As a garnish,” Applejack insisted. “You wouldn’t eat a plate of chives for dinner.”
“Yes I would.”
“Point taken. You would. A normal pony wouldn’t.”
“Girls!” Twilight stomped her hoof down. “Look, we can settle this easily. I’ve got a book on herbs, and we’ll just see what they have to say about chives.”
Leaving her two friends glaring at each other, Twilight hurried over to her shelf of gardening books. One day she was going to try and grow her own vegetables—it seemed silly to live in a farm town and be one of the few ponies who didn’t grow something—but she hadn’t had enough time to research the proper crop just yet.
With little difficulty, she slid the enormous tome off the shelf and began flipping through it. “Chives: a herb commonly used for seasoning foods or for its medicinal qualities—”
“Ah told ya it was a herb!”
“—the chive is the smallest of the edible onion species.”
“Onions are food,” Pinkie countered.
“Jest ‘cause it’s related to a food don’t make it one.”
“Yeah-huh.”
“That was surprisingly unhelpful,” Twilight muttered. “Well, hold on a minute, you two. You’re putting the cart ahead of the pony here. We can come up with an answer to this scientifically. First: what is food?”
“Somethin’ ya can eat.” Pinkie nodded.
“Okay, something you can eat. Is that it?”
“Nah, it’s gotta be good fer ya. Ah mean, foals an’ pregnant mares’ll eat dirt sometimes, but that ain’t food.”
“Not even if you make mud pies,” Pinkie agreed.
Twilight laid a parchment on the table and took a quill in her telekinetic grasp. “Okay, so it has to be something that a pony can eat and it has to be good for a pony.”
“Wait—does it have to be good for a pony?”
“‘Tain’t food if it’s bad fer ya. You don’t think that the paste they have at the schoolhouse is food, do ya? Even if it does taste pretty darn good?”
“Cakes and cookies and cocoa and chocolate aren’t good for a pony,” Pinkie said. “Even though they taste really good.”
“Chocolate is,” Twilight said. “It’s got the mild stimulant caffeine in it, plus dark chocolate has flavonoids and antioxidants, which are good for the heart. But if you eat too much, you get fat.” She sighed, thinking of her hips. She’d been spending too much time in the library lately . . . maybe she should get out and exercise more. How is Pinkie Pie so in shape, with all the treats she eats? “Most foods are bad if you eat too much of them,” she concluded. “A pony can’t live on just one kind of thing; she needs a balanced diet. Every different kind of food has different nutrition.”
“Yeah. Everypony seems ta forget we grow crops other’n apples, an’ we eat other stuff, too.”
“And chives have nutrition in them,” Twilight said. “They’ve got vitamins, calcium, and iron. So, I’d have to agree with Pinkie that chives are food.”
“Toldja so!” Pinkie happily bounced around the library.
“Jest don’t seem right. Nopony’d eat a while buncha herbs as a dinner.” Applejack scuffed her hoof across the library floor. “Well, shoot. Ah guess I owe you an apology, Pinkie.”
“Accepted!”
Twilight smiled. “I’m glad we learned something today, girls. I’ll have to send this in a friendship report to Princess Celestia. Research can settle arguments.”
“Outa morbid curiosity, Twi, have ya got a dictionary?”
“Well, of course I do. This is a library, after all. Why do you ask?”
“We coulda jest looked up the definition of ‘food’ in there, couldn’t we have?”
“Um, yes?” Twilight’s face colored, and she grabbed the dictionary off its perch. “Let’s see. ‘Food. Any nutritious substance that ponies or animals or plants eat or drink or absorb.’ Huh, so I guess magical energy is kind of food, too.”
“And love, if you’re a changeling.”
“That’s a good point, Pinkie.”
Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “What about worms?”
“Worms?”
“Worms.”
“I—ah, well, birds eat them, and fish will. I think moles do, and probably some other burrowing mammals, so, by definition, worms are food.”
“Aha!” Applejack glared at Pinkie. “So there. Ah was right about worms.”
“I never said you weren’t,” Pinkie replied. “I just said that you shouldn’t have put worms in muffins, silly. I should have known that worm muffins aren’t edible.”
“Are, too.”
Two sets of eyes turned to look at Twilight. “Er, well, technically, I suppose a pony could get some nutrition from a worm. Protein. Vitamins and trace minerals, I’d imagine. I’m not sure how healthy it would be, though, but if it was washed. . . .”
“Are you confident enough that you’d eat a bowl of worms?”
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Only if you’ll eat a whole bowlful of chives.”
“It. Is. On.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. This won’t end well. I’d better refresh my memory on emetic spells, and notify nurse Tenderheart.