Some bitterness is good, there’s the whole book about it-- Bitter (who has read it?). But squash, bitterness isn’t good for you. What are the details about bitterness in other species like greens? So many interesting tidbits in this blog post.
Side note: I heard a local story of a senior center thriftily making soup out of all their decorative gourds after Thanksgiving. The soup was very bitter, most people couldn’t eat it. At least one person tried to be polite and ate the whole bowl, and got very sick.
Yes, this is a very interesting post. I remember telling somebody not to eat bitter cucurbits, and they said, “aren’t bitter vegetables good for you?” The simplistic counterpart to the general idea that bitter=bad.
Thanks @julia.dakin - saved me making this post. Could you tell me the author of this book which is called “Bitter”?
Bitterness is a huge topic, so I decided to confine my substack post to just one particular class.
That senior centre could have killed people with their decorative gourd soup, wow. Now we know that it definitely not a guidance term (unlike decorative brassicas for example).
That happened to me on my first year of doing a (small) mixta grex (2021): one out of the 3 strains I grew altogether, and from a seed seller!.. First there was some kind of bitter feeling in my mouth, kind of strange taste, but just “kind of”, not crystal clear… Then, a few minuts later, I vomitted. That didn’t last long actually. The next day I dumped all my year’s mixta seeds which were drying as I did not want any crosses with these…
But so much great insights from @Thulahn in this article. A must-read.