I'm absolutely in love with your description of experiencing "the whole spectrum of what it means to be that vegetable." If you ever have a chance, I would highly recommend going to a farm to table restaurant (or just doing this at home if you access to high quality produce) where they bring you all of the ingredients they will be using that night for your meal raw to be tasted before the meal as a reference point of sorts. It's an absolute delight to anchor the experience of a meal that way and I wish more places would adopt the practice in some form or another.