Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess in the flower of her youth.

As she matured, it became clear that she was going to be a tomato.

A red hot tomato.

The princess, aware of her beauty, decided to go to the big city where the pickings ought to be good.  There, she had four suitors, all named Basil.

The Basils, really quite crude if attractive and smelling good, couldn’t agree on who should have her so they cut her up.  All would marry their piece and so they called the parson.
The parson had never married vegetables before and since he was hungry, he ate them all.  The moral of the story is that it is not wise to leave home if you have the sense of a vegetable, you might become an ingredient in someone’s salad.  Which will happen at home too but at least you won’t have to travel so far.
Special thanks to Edward Gorey.