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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3266 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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You know, my dad growing up used think butter was flavor. Period. Even into adulthood, if something wasn't slathered in butter, he thought it was flavorless.

These days, everyone seems to suffer from what my dad had, god rest his congested heart, except with sugar instead. That's all I can think of when I see people complaining about the taste of coffee sans sugar and cream.

Someone here once said that even modern berries have, say, 50 times the amount of sugar that actual wild ones did. I have no idea if that’s true, but it does Really Make You Think.

My mother ran into a problem where her family recipe for cranberry jelly stopped working. After a few years of debugging, and experimenting with things like altitude, it turned out to be the sugar content of the cranberries. Apparently the modern commercial breed has a lot more sugar than the old breeds. I don't know about 50 times, but it was definitely enough to cause pre-20th-century recipes to stop working.

Watermelon rinds have shrunk, too, causing problems for watermelon rind pickle.

And brussel sprouts are no longer as bitter as they used to be.

I can totally believe modern berries have more sugar. But I have wild blackberries on my property, and at most store bought blueberries are 5x sweeter. I don't know how quantity of sugar versus taste of sugar scales though. Maybe it's logarithmic for all I know. Or my taste buds are broken.

I suppose the thesis is that even the wild blackberries on your property are descended from cultivated species, but again I have no idea if that’s true.

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