h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... it's the cyanide in almonds that makes them taste bitter?

Yep! *nods sagely*

I had heard something about that along time ago

there's a trace of it in apple pips too... but you couldn't poison anyone by giving them a smoothy containing pips and almonds.

Duh!

Further...the cyanide is concentrated in a few almonds only. In The Civilised Countries, they give you one or two in your bag. (if you ate a whole bag, you'd die.) But the more feartie nations insist on all the bitter ones - all the ones with the *flavour* are taken out and thrown away.


G - you know that road in Paleokastritsa that leads back from the lookout place (what's it called?) , through the pretty wee village with the kafenion and down to all the touristy bits? We once walked down there and on the way we bought a paper cone of almonds (Mandelya? Sounds about right) from an auld boy. They had a peculiar taste...we couldn't quite place it...they tasted peculiarly of...













...almonds!

'Pear pits, the kernels of plums, peaches and apricots, apple core pits - cyanide poisoning'

Sorry, I couldn't resist. When researching my entry on German Shepherds(dogs), I discovered that the above could result in cyanide poisoning in dogs, so it doesn't come as a surprise that this is also the case in humans. Dogs suffer many diseases common with humans (cancer, epilepsy, arthritis) so it seems plausible that apple pips have a similar result in humans.

Some people think that Amaretto and amaretti buscuits are made from almonds. Nope. Apricot kernels.


When I was young, I used to love biting open a plum stone and eating the pit. I don't know if my teeth could take it now.

When making damson jam, it's important to leave the stones in, for the flavour. My next-door-but-one neighour when I was growing up was a greengrocer. (we were a general shop/ tobacconist. HonestIago knows where) Anyway...his wife made the *best* damson jam. I've not tasted the like since.

Great pickled onions, too.

Poisons are fascinating, taken in small doses they were considered a 'cure' once upon a time.

I have never liked the taste of almonds, yet my mother and sister love it!

I ate almost an entire box of Italian soft macaroons last night, and I'm still alive. At least, someone is typing this...

Actually, it is hydrogen cyanide which is found in almonds. It is potassium cyanide that secret agents have in their tooth for committing suicide when caught by the red menace.

I remember a chemistry book which had a table at the back of various chemical reagents and what to if you accidentally swallowed them. Under hydrogen cyanide, it just had "instantly fatal".

*sneaks in a 'do' into Gnomon's posting no. 10*

To be or to do, that is the question.

....and I'm just back after a long g**gle search on Cyanine, which it seems has nothing whatsoever to do with cyanide after all.


Oh it's a long time since I read so much chemistry, and this early in the morning?

But it isn't you my friend - it is your Ghost. !!

Didn't you realise that?


CME
9/10/09 14.00BST

I read that wild almonds are poisonous, and that over the centuries they have been genetically modified (the slow method: by only breeding from the nice ones) (breeding isn't the word for plants; propagating?) to make them increasingly edible. Same process for corn/maize; the original strains were tough to a degree.

As Steven Pinker says, most plants are as toxic as they can make themselves. A cabbage doesn't want to be eaten any more than we do.

So much for 'natural' as an advertising word on foods.

Many fruits are designed, if you'll forgive the expression, to be edible. The fruit gets eaten and the stone thrown away quite some distance from the original plant. It's no advantage to the plant, though, if the nut is eaten, so many nice fruits have nasty pips or stones.

Yes, that is the exception.

Steven Pinker?

Is it just me? Or does that appear at first glance as Stinker to anyone else?

I think it might possibly be just you.

Gnomon! You are back!!


We had a rather ly character in here yesterday