In article ,
Rusty Hinge 2 writes:
|
| However, tomatoes are much more closely related to black nightshade,
| whose berries are edible when ripe, in just the same way as green
| tomatoes are slightly poisonous, but on ripening, become free of the
| relevant toxin.
|
| Black nightshade berries are quite widely eaten on every continent
| except Antarctica, and I concoct a very passable ersatz blueberry pie
| filling with them, and some added sugar and tartaric (or ascorbic) acid.

Er, not quite. At one stage, I got interested, and did some quite
extensive poking around for information - including in scientific
papers.

Black nightshade is, indeed, widely eaten - but also causes quite
a lot of cases of (usually non-fatal) poisoning. Their toxicity or
lack of it may depend on the variety, the growing conditions, the
degree of ripeness, and their preparation. The scientists who tried
to identify what factors were important and the toxins wrote some
ambivalent papers and then seemed to move onto less confusing areas
of research.

| You *CAN* use citric acid, but IME it tastes of lemon.
|
| rant
|
| And it's added to most commercial jams, and ruins their flavour.
|
| /rant

Just think how sickly they would be without it!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.