Could be the wrong place for this, but it's about palate and something that affects it.
I used to eat pasta quite often with red or green pesto, really liked the stuff and never gave me a problem. But one of the major constituents of pesto is ground pine nut.
Sometime 2006-ish, I was visiting friends and used to spend quite a lot of time in their sun room admiring the splendid garden. The hostess came through with a tiny dish full of pine nuts for me and I sat there happily nibbling on them until they were gone.
Wind forward to the next day. I was suddenly afflicted by the bitterest metallic taste in my mouth. It was like pure, distilled, 150° proof bitter. I could no longer taste sweet, salt, sour, nothing but intense bitter. I drank water. I drank milk. I tried sugary sweets. No. Just... bitter.
I became alarmed that I'd had some kind of brain event, stroke, aneurism, something ghastly and permanent. I was stuck like this for days. The symptoms slowly began to ameliorate, but it took a good two weeks to recover some semblance of normal.
So what had caused it? Well, I'd never actually eaten unprocessed pine nuts before and I began to wonder if they were somehow connected. A bit of research on the Internets revealed, yes, "Pine Nut Mouth" is, or was, a real thing.
Nobody seemed to know why one could eat pine nuts for years and then blammo, afflicted. There were theories about Chinese pine nuts and certain species of pine, unconfirmed. All I know is that, never ever again. No pine nuts. No pesto. Nothing containing them in any form. No thank you.
I told my best mate and his wife about this one night. They were both big on pine nuts in their cuisine. He was curious and was I sure? She went mental at me and gave me dog's abuse for even suggesting such a thing, furious. Oh well.
Coda. About 7 or 8 months later, I was speaking to him, how's tricks? Oh, trouble at home. What's up? Oh, wife's got Pine Nut Mouth, it's the end of the frickin world etc. - went on for about 4 weeks, apparently. Tee-hee.
So, let this be a warning for those of us who treasure our palate - be very cautious around pine nuts.
I used to eat pasta quite often with red or green pesto, really liked the stuff and never gave me a problem. But one of the major constituents of pesto is ground pine nut.
Sometime 2006-ish, I was visiting friends and used to spend quite a lot of time in their sun room admiring the splendid garden. The hostess came through with a tiny dish full of pine nuts for me and I sat there happily nibbling on them until they were gone.
Wind forward to the next day. I was suddenly afflicted by the bitterest metallic taste in my mouth. It was like pure, distilled, 150° proof bitter. I could no longer taste sweet, salt, sour, nothing but intense bitter. I drank water. I drank milk. I tried sugary sweets. No. Just... bitter.
I became alarmed that I'd had some kind of brain event, stroke, aneurism, something ghastly and permanent. I was stuck like this for days. The symptoms slowly began to ameliorate, but it took a good two weeks to recover some semblance of normal.
So what had caused it? Well, I'd never actually eaten unprocessed pine nuts before and I began to wonder if they were somehow connected. A bit of research on the Internets revealed, yes, "Pine Nut Mouth" is, or was, a real thing.
Nobody seemed to know why one could eat pine nuts for years and then blammo, afflicted. There were theories about Chinese pine nuts and certain species of pine, unconfirmed. All I know is that, never ever again. No pine nuts. No pesto. Nothing containing them in any form. No thank you.
I told my best mate and his wife about this one night. They were both big on pine nuts in their cuisine. He was curious and was I sure? She went mental at me and gave me dog's abuse for even suggesting such a thing, furious. Oh well.
Coda. About 7 or 8 months later, I was speaking to him, how's tricks? Oh, trouble at home. What's up? Oh, wife's got Pine Nut Mouth, it's the end of the frickin world etc. - went on for about 4 weeks, apparently. Tee-hee.
So, let this be a warning for those of us who treasure our palate - be very cautious around pine nuts.
