This is really weird!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Wow! I’m used to strange flavors, but this was weird to the max.

So there I am at my favorite Arabic food market buying some fresh pita bread and good French feta cheese. While I’m paying at the register, I notice a type of Stimirol gum at the register that I’ve never had before (green label instead of white).

Note: As you may have been able to tell by now, I love all things Danish. Stimirol is one of the classic Danish chewing gums. Slightly less famous than Dandy perhaps. This may be because Stimirol has a licorice flavor. (How many of you remember the American licorice flavored chewing gum, Blackjack? Try to remember that in Denmark, the population eats more licorice than chocolate on a per capita basis. I have a licorice collection, so you know where this puts me.

I comment on the green label Stimirol to the gal at the register and she pops up with an already opened pack and lets me sample two pieces of it. The flavor, aah, how shall I describe the flavor. There was a distinct note of what seemed to be cardomom. This was followed by an overwhelming background of, (what’s that flavor?), oh yes, turpentine!

I’ll guarantee one thing for sure. Even your camel will have fresh breath after chewing on this stuff. I couldn’t understand what flavor the girl was trying to identify for me, so she led me over to the spice counter and pulled out a little bottle of crystallized material labeled, Mastic. I remember mastic tape and mastic adhesive compounds, but a food stuff? Rhully!

I’ve just referenced my Concise Oxford English Dictionary and it identifies mastic as coming from the Pistacia lenticus tree. Evidently this is the material also used in the Greek wine Retsina and a Turkish wine as well. It is also identified as an ingredient in varnish. Trust me, this stuff really laquered my innards. I’m still washing the taste out of my mouth as I write this. Thank goodness for beer!

So, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Any of you have tales of mastic or other weird ass foods that you’ve run across? Park your posts right here.

For real food for thought visit here.

2

[hijack]
oooooohhhh…Zenster…you have a licorice collection???

dammit…I’m already married…I have searched high and low for a man who appreciates licorice the way I do…sigh…
[/hijack]

3

Yes indeed I collect licorice. Most of my licorice is of Danish origin. There is also Dutch, Italian and American.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

“Licorice is the liver of candies.”

Dylan, you need to start your hubby out slow on some of the lighter types of licorice. Feed him a Smint breath mint. Whatever you do, don’t tell him that the top note in the flavor set is licorice. These little overpackaged and overpriced bastards are brutally addicting!

Just recently, I finally found the missing jar size for my licorice collection. I collect the old style glass candy jars and have (::goes to count them::slight_smile: almost two dozen types of licorice in my collection.

Please let me know whether you enjoy the European style of salted licorice (::involuntarily salivating::). I will be happy to refer you to a couple of different places that stock a variety of great licorices.

PS: Anyone who is associating licorice with the color red may slink off without posting and avoid incurring my eternal wrath.

4

It’s Stimorol, and Feta cheese is Greek, not French.

Carry on :wink:

5

While in France some years back, I came across a cheese that smells of dirty diiapers. It tastes delightful. At least, to me.

What??? Stop looking at me weird!

6

The one I liked was Beeman’s Pepsin Gum.
Once a popular flavor, now impossible to find. Why? Don’t they know there’s new generations looking for new flavors?
Call it Goulberry and you’d create a yearly franchise for Halloween candy.

7

Aaaahhhh! I misspelled a Danish product name, ( ::offering wrists:: ), kill me now! Thank you Coldfire.

PS: Danish and French feta are so far superior to most originals (at least here, stateside), that it is what I buy.