Jujube

I was sold some dried jujube in the Culver City market in LA. 'Good for your blood, iron and vitamin C' the stall holder told me. He also said they tasted like dates. They may be related to the date family but they really do not taste like dates. Wikipedia says they taste like apples. They do not taste like apples, either.
Crisp, red and brittle on the outside; the inside texture is not dissimilar to roof lagging. I suppose they taste bland and like a powdery sherbet.
The Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese use the jujube to make potions, teas, medicine, potpouri, love spells...in fact everything from the fresh and dried drupes with a strangely voodoo sounding name.

King of Fruits

Once described by Stephen Fry as something like 'smelling like the arsehole of Satan but tasting like the sugar-dusted nipple of an angel', durian evokes a strong response in everyone who comes into contact with it.
Illegal in most public places in Asia, due to it's pungent smell, durian is thorny-monster of a fruit, which can weigh upto 7lbs and is a beast to cut open...but oh my goodness it is SO worth it!
Inside, the creamy, glutinous flesh is sweet with a complex flavour of roasted almonds, custard and vanilla. It is intoxicating, not to mention its incredible vitamin and mineral content. Apart from fats, vitamin C and potassium, it is a great source of the illusive tryptophan; one of the key nutrients depleted in depressives, and in natural sources works as a superb mood enhancer.
The way to find a durian fruit that is ripe and ready is when its husk begins to crack, that is when it is at its most pungent and creamy. A big, thick stem is a sign of freshness or the sound of the moving seeds when the durian is shaken. The seeds themselves can be boiled or fried for an aditional yam-like accompaniment.

So, this is what I think, but I don't want to lead you into a false sense of durian-loving, so here are some quotes from the otherside of the table...and I quote:

British novelist Anthony Burgess: Like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory.

US chef & author Anthony Bourdain: Its taste can only be described as...indescribable ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother.

Travel & food writer Richard Stirling: ...It's odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.


Well, I'm a fan.

Whiffy

I have been banging on about the power of smell as a great marketing tool for eons. I always thought that the Orange mobile stores would benefit from having the smell of oranges whafting through them. So, finally someone has developed the ideas of olofactory 'food like' experiences from early 2000's into a viable product. Enter, Le Whif which goes on sale later this month and comes in four flavors: mint chocolate, raspberry chocolate, mango chocolate, and plain chocolate.

It looks like a small, sleek aerosol can in brown and pink and can be tucked away for a secret whiffing binge!

Harvard professor David Edwards, lead inventor of Le Whif, says: "Over the centuries we've been eating smaller and smaller quantities at shorter and shorter intervals. It seemed to us that eating was tending toward breathing, so, with a mix of culinary art and aerosol science, we've helped move eating habits to their logical conclusion. We call it whiffing."( I can't help but think that this name was not developed by an English person!) It was developed at the Foodlab at Le Laboratoire, in central Paris.

I have a sneaky feeling that anyone with an eating disorder will suddenly arrive in paradise with just a couple of inhalations. This could be dangerous...

IMPORTANT info on your favourite food

Most people thing of chocolate as a treat or a 'naughty food' because it is mostly full of sugar and milk and after it has been so processed any of the anti-oxidants have been boiled, chopped, crushed, heated, roasted and whipped away.
BUT the raw ingredients of cacao are our best known source of magnesium and anti-oxidents on the planet (30 times higher anti-oxidents levels than found in green tea). Raw cacao also has more than 300 known phytochemicals including tryptophan (seratonin builder and anti-depressant).
Just to clarify:
Cocoa is a processed subastance used to make
'normal' chocolate.
Cacao is the beans pod - seed of the fruit from the cacao tree.
Coco - is from coconut.
Coca - is the leaf of the plant from which cocaine is derived.
Kola- is the nut used to flavour soft drinks.

Cacao is the most nutrient dense and complex food known to man. Eat some now!

Dog Food for Humans

I met punks in the 70's who ate tins of Pedigree Chum but that must have been an acquired taste that the masses never adapted to...but now humans can go ahead and help themselves to the goodies which have been especially created for designer dogs and cats in the USA - and don't mean choccie drops...
Paw'reos are a canine version of Oreo cookies and the muffins come in a variety of flavours (blueberry oat bran or cranberry granola for example) each with their own defining sprinkle of colour on top. There are birthday cakesThe treats are made from (supposed) human grade ingredients like wholemeal flour, peanut butter, eggs and are baked to be a much less sweet version of what 2 legged friends prefer. My friends tried these snacks for themselves and said that they tasted bland but ok, although they wouldn't give any such rubbish to their pets. Makes you think twice about what most people eat then...doesn't it!?

New Chocolate Flavour

Granted, this not the best picture in the world but here is Mo's Bacon Bar. A bar of chocolate with pig fat and bacon bits in it. You must have tried bacon and peanut butter? or jam and sardines? Well, this is the newest flavour from Vosges designer chocolate company based in the US.
I'd love to say I've had some but I don't eat the stuff. I was told however the combo rocks!