North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

There are many different alkaloids that produce bitter flavors.  Some are good for us, some bad.  In general, for any given person it's best to avoid those that seem offensive.  Bitter melons are quite good in my opinion(cooked with meat and sweetened with pears and onions), but I've only grown the milder chinese type.  I've read that the Indian ones are smaller and darker and even more bitter, and are extremely well liked in India.  In Chinese medicine, bitter flavors are associated with happiness.  I've read that people who are depressed often find bitter floods unbearably bitter.  Even in America, where bitter foods are not very popular, you can go into a grocery and come out with 5 bitter items that are associated with feeling good.  They are: coffee, tea, chocolate, wine and beer. 

    Tim Peters talked like there were strains of huckleberry that were not bitter.  There seems to be some uncertainty whether solanum nigrum, S. melanocerasum, S. intrusum, S. scrabrum, and S. nigrum guineense are all the same species.  We have the wild black nightshade in our garden every year, and the garden huckleberry plants looked somewhat like it, but that was years ago.  I sure do remember the difference in taste between Tim's sweet and bitter strains!!!   Donna