Agreed.  Many old varieties of fruits and vegetables are much better than the modern versions that taste like flavored cardboard.  One in particular I remember is a type of banana my family grew in Florida.  It's small, but incredibly sweet and flavorful.  It's not sold in grocery stores, at least not in America. 


During a stay in Paris, I spotted them in a small grocery shop across the street from my hotel.  I bought several bunches of them during my stay.  Partner™ agreed they were the best bananas he had ever tasted, far better than the Cavendish bananas (or the Gros Michel, which the Cavendish replaced) sold in American markets.

doesyourpussyhurt wrote:

We apparently like monocultures. It makes it much easier to wipe out a food item if we only have one or two types available. A friend from Peru once explained why we never heard of the Peruvian Potato Famine like we did the Irish. She said because Peru has so many varieties of potatoes growing there

Sorta. I spent my wonder years in Lima, where we had better bananas than fnord can imagine.

Potatoes originated in Peru and it remains the planet's source of potato genetic diversity for every conceivable hue, size, taste or texture of tubber... each adapted to different growing conditions. Peru is, or was, the most delightfully food obsessed culture I've ever known and I never got over it... especially not after living among these herring chocking chowder heads here.

whosasailorthen wrote:

Great article.  God bless him.

I'm gonna go find him, I need me some apples trees for my abode on High Street.

Bigcat wrote:

fnord wrote:

Agreed.   Partner™ agreed they were the best bananas he had ever tasted

Kinda rude of him to say that right to your face. Pfft, Men.

Careful there Bigkitty, that sounds convincing.

insomniac wrote:

My dad and I were just discussing this the other day...then the subject of chickens came up...he's 82 now and remembers having at least 6 different breeds of chicken running around the yard when he was young...but when his folks sought out new and bigger markets for the eggs, the buyers made them get rid of all but but the best laying breed...the downfall of the diversity of yard-fowl commenced.

Recent eggs found locally here.  We only eat eggs from free-range, organically fed chickens... but yeah, we get white, blue, red, brown.. all sorts of varieties.  Delicious.  And the yolks are SO rich and dark yellow... yum.  My son's can't eat store-bought eggs anymore, nor can I - they're disgusting.

Oh, and that's real grade-B maple syrup, too. 

Bigcat wrote:

Not sure I understand.

Yeah, me either. Yesterday falls head first into the category of lost time, abducted and all memory triple wiped.

Emmeran wrote:

choad wrote:

Yeah, me either. Yesterday falls head first into the category of lost time, abducted and all memory triple wiped.

What else are holiday weekends for?

I stayed sober. Tried out my newly healed broken vertebrae with a 5 mile hike into the mountains on Saturday and back out on Sunday. Legs are sore as fuck from months of not moving but my back feels good. I'm sure nobody cares, just thought I would explain my sobriety.

Yup, as I explained separately I need to take a trip down sobriety lane again shortly and I'm not looking forward to that fun.

choad wrote:

Avocados.

Toxic to animals.

Ha!   La Habra...