13/09/2020 Wikipedia reports that the fruits of wild honeysuckle are “edible either raw or cooked, b
13/09/2020 Wikipedia reports that the fruits of wild honeysuckle are “edible either raw or cooked, but are not a common food.”“Not a common food” is usually ethnobotanist for “so astringent your face will turn inside out, make sure you have a set of those giant suction cups they use to fix dents in cars to turn it right way round” but look at them! The beautiful shiny red fruit! The jolly candy-like fruit! Like a delightful Giant Red World-Ending Button!Most years the birds eat them, but this year they’ve left a lot behind. So today I tried a wild honeysuckle berry, and it was unbelievably awful. It was like if that burnt-rubber failing clutch smell from a large truck failing to climb up a steep mountain road was incarnated as a person, and that person lived on a diet of sharpie markers, which they dipped in marmite and cracked open like bones to eat the delicious stinky marrow, and wandered around wearing nothing but neon green hot pants, and then you licked them.It was much worse than Edible But Not A Common Food. Perhaps it should be Not A Food At All, or maybe some sort of Anti-Food Singularity Whose Mere Existence Makes The Rest Of The Universe Less Delicious. Given the awfulness, and the fact that the birds aren’t eating them this year, I am suspicious of that sneaky villain, Smoke Taint. Smoke taint is when fancy wine grapes absorb weird chemicals from wildfire smoke and subsequently make extremely strange alien wines. Can honeysuckle berries get smoke tainted?I have no idea. The scientific thing to do would be to try another berry next year if it’s less smoky and compare the taste, but … I’m not sure I have the courage. Science demands too much. -- source link
#lonicera ciliosa#wild honeysuckle#smoke taint