beware the evil pine nut

Miss Morag loved pine nuts until about a week ago. Until she was struck down with a mysterious and unfortunate affliction. A most unpleasant condition affecting only a very small, but very important part of the anatomy. The taste buds.

Following three full days over the Easter weekend when nothing - not even a Lindt bunny, tasted any good, the worry set in. Everything MM put in her mouth was met with an overwhelmingly bitter, metallic taste. Wine, bitter. Stewed rhubarb with ice cream, bitter. Even water. The sour taste was present even when not eating - in every waking moment - but got much worse with the introduction of any food or drink.

Convinced she had some terrible disease, naturally Dr Google was consulted and with astonishing results. There is evidence of a taste disturbance caused by certain varieties of pine nuts! A Singaporean woman has even written a thesis on the subject , the US Food and Drug Administration is investigating the problem, and Wikipedia has an entry about it.

So don't say you haven't been warned, dear readers. It took over a week for her taste buds to recover, and MM will certainly be thinking twice before eating those tiny flavour thieves again.