Maybe there is a new business model here. Aged honey. I wonder what it taste like (of course different honeys taste different already). I have some bees and will start labeling the honey and saving a jar or two every year.
That has been a global problem, lots of it in the US as well. I tend to only buy honey from known local producers, either at specialty stores or street markets.
To some degree and depending on the brew style, mead is also a very very long ager. Plenty of stories of finding vessels in archaeological digs - still ready for a sip. I still have some bottles from my first batches of mead back in the 90s, and I have to say, they continue to evolve slightly - especially given how hot they were when I was a beginner.
2,000-year-old honey that's still edible? Oh, I so want to taste. My grandfather was a beekeeper, and I learned about the different flavors of honey as he harvested from different locations throughout the season.
It's fun to purchase honey from beekeepers a hundred miles away and see how the flavor changes. I personally like late-season honeys, which tend to have richer flavors from late-summer and fall flowers.
Most foods taken from nature will still rot in their naturally-sealed forms. Pressure canned foods last a long time but use far more robust and energy intensive processes than a thin layer of wax and "the way that it is" to seal and stabilize the contents.
Ferments could be an outlier but usually dance on the edge of rot by design and can last longer than the raw cabbage or milk or meat they start from, but like honeycomb, they must be carefully stored.
There is an interesting story (only slightly relevant) about glycerine. It was a pure liquid, held in many labs throughout the world. Until for some reason it crystallised in one lab. Wishing a short amount of time all the world's samples crystallised.
Isn't that somewhat similar to prions? I mean I know they're different things but one triggering the other to change shape? Don't know if prions also fall in some sort of lower energy well.
Just to be clear -- this story is fictional, it did not happen in real life. It has become a bit of an urban legend because of a video game but does not have a basis in fact.
Maybe there is a new business model here. Aged honey. I wonder what it taste like (of course different honeys taste different already). I have some bees and will start labeling the honey and saving a jar or two every year.
I don't know for the US, but in Europe fake honey is a big problem. There were several grocery chains who had to call back their honey because of it
Yes. Good episode about fake honey and its interaction with almond growing: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/beeconomics-101/
That has been a global problem, lots of it in the US as well. I tend to only buy honey from known local producers, either at specialty stores or street markets.
To some degree and depending on the brew style, mead is also a very very long ager. Plenty of stories of finding vessels in archaeological digs - still ready for a sip. I still have some bottles from my first batches of mead back in the 90s, and I have to say, they continue to evolve slightly - especially given how hot they were when I was a beginner.
2,000-year-old honey that's still edible? Oh, I so want to taste. My grandfather was a beekeeper, and I learned about the different flavors of honey as he harvested from different locations throughout the season.
It's fun to purchase honey from beekeepers a hundred miles away and see how the flavor changes. I personally like late-season honeys, which tend to have richer flavors from late-summer and fall flowers.
A rare treat I've had was honey from Pitcairn Island. This is how you get in the queue for a jar. https://pitkernartisangallery.pn/products/pipco-pitcairn-isl... https://livebeekeeping.com/honey/pitcairn-island-honey/
The most interesting honey I had was "forest honey," which bees don't make from flowers at all.
> So if you’re interested in keeping honey for hundreds of years, do what the bees do and keep it sealed
Doesn't this make honey somewhat less unique? Aren't there many foods that will keep for hundreds of years if kept sealed?
Most foods taken from nature will still rot in their naturally-sealed forms. Pressure canned foods last a long time but use far more robust and energy intensive processes than a thin layer of wax and "the way that it is" to seal and stabilize the contents.
Ferments could be an outlier but usually dance on the edge of rot by design and can last longer than the raw cabbage or milk or meat they start from, but like honeycomb, they must be carefully stored.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11951860
Above from 2016 (87 comments), and original from 2013:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6263724 The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life (smithsonianmag.com) 86 comments
There is an interesting story (only slightly relevant) about glycerine. It was a pure liquid, held in many labs throughout the world. Until for some reason it crystallised in one lab. Wishing a short amount of time all the world's samples crystallised.
Sounds similar to the real-life case of ritonavir:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritonavir#Polymorphism_and_tem...
Isn't that somewhat similar to prions? I mean I know they're different things but one triggering the other to change shape? Don't know if prions also fall in some sort of lower energy well.
Veritasium just did a video on this.
https://youtu.be/ksn5yrsC3Wg
Also less recently Asianometry: https://youtu.be/_xPhxtuA_Qc
Just to be clear -- this story is fictional, it did not happen in real life. It has become a bit of an urban legend because of a video game but does not have a basis in fact.
Obligatory reference to Ice-9 in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle: a form of water ice that freezes at a high temperature.
Interesting! Could you expand?
Tangent vulture bees yuck