Acids, enzymes, whatever it is that's how I (mis)understood it. I guess its back to Pineapples & Human Biochemistry 101 for me !
What is the difference between an acid and an enzyme? In my mind they are essentially the same thing, maybe someone can clarify?
Seed, I can cut my mouth open real easy on stuff too. I had to give up the Captain Crunch (and other good tasting sugar coated kid cereal that I love) cos it just hurt too much to eat it, what with the shredded palate after every bowl and all.
PAK, you can just think of cactus as a green pepper - that's what I was told, and what caused me to try it. I'd seen it in the stores for a long time but I never knew what people did with it! After only one dish I already like them better than GP. Instead of using a GP try a few pads of Optunia in a dish you've made before and know you like and see what you think. At least for me this is the best way to try a single new ingredient cos I know what it's supposed to taste like and I can see what this new thing does to it. It is a little stiffer than your average GP having skin on two sides. Doesn't seem to make a difference when sauteed. I don't know what it would be like baked in meatloaf or something, maybe being surrounded by juices and heated at 400*F for an hour would soften it right up... Cactusloaf! A lot of people seem to like them fried and put with scrambled eggs, I haven't tried that yet but not being a real egg fan, I may never...
Dr. Wurm, if Seeds description made you queasy what about the lyrics sheet for the first couple Carcass records (
Reek of Putrefaction and
Symphonies of Sickness) the ones with the autopsy collages on the covers? Those were even more uh... visually descriptive. Though you needed a medical reference and dictionary to find out just how gross some of the songs were!
(since someone will invariably want to look them up:
http://www.lyricsty.com/lyrics/c/carcass/ You'll be able to tell the ones I'm talking about by the titles alone.)