Please enjoy this never-before-seen-on-LegendofBill.com classic LoB from a past issue of Renaissance Magazine, in the interim until new strips come back at you. I promise it won’t be too much longer, Billarians! P.S. Legend of Bill has been running in the magazine since 2009!
How is strawberry stiffer? No caffeine or theobromine.
heeheehee. True, Johanan! TRUE! But don’t tell Bill that. He likes to live dangerously.
Do you think Bill would notice if Pixie (or Sarah) handed him a strawberry margarita?
If he wants to live dangerously, try one of the two species of black current that are native to Oregon. While edible, the flavor is…um… the closest thing I can think of is getting dirt accidentally in the mouth.
(Some of the other currents taste pretty good, but somehow our black currents are different from the European one…)
Different “protein matrix”, as a friend of mine would describe its natural environment (he’s told me about how different European cultivars have responded here). The Wikipedia article is detailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_currant
Funny, I seem to recall having had black currants – dried? – at some point and while I found them unusual, I didn’t find them tasting like dirt.
The difference is that the commercially-cultivated currants are the European Black Current, ribes negrum and the others are native. I like the juice of the European black currant.
The local black currants in Oregon are
Ribes laxiflorum and Ribes hudsonianum
I’ve eaten both and in a word, EEEEYUCK! They would definitely fall under “survival food” like water lily or some of the native or introduced greenery that’s edible and even nutritious, but bad-tasting.
My favorite ribes species is Gummy Gooseberry, Ribes lobbii. In the Klamath Mountains, they would get to about 1.25″ long, about 5/8″ wide, a translucent pink color and they were sweet. Not just the pulp, but the skin was coated with a “sugar coating”, which is why they call them gummy, apparently, because that outside sugar is very sticky. Lots of them on a bush, too. I wish I’d taken some back and grown them here.
http://www.plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=RIBES
My favorite for flowers is Blood Currant, which has bright red/magenta flowers.
As an aside, we weren’t supposed to have “Ribes menziesii” in this area. Found some last summer about 30 miles from here. It’s not much, but it feels good when they change the range maps based on something one does.
More of that Red Majick I see!
Well, at least it won’t be as expensive as chocolate. Strawberries are actually native to areas frequented by barbarians and don’t require long, expensive imports from distant tropical areas.