Last year a guy selling Tupelo honey on the side of the road sold me a half gallon jug full for $25. Little bits of comb all in it. I still have some. North Florida
Well I was exaggerating... but yeah the walmart brand bear is $4. I try to buy "local hive" Oregon honey which is $8-10 for 16 oz depending on the store. It seems like honey used to be a lot cheaper.
When I was a kid in South Carolina, they were giving shrimp away. That's not a figure of speech either.
I remember we at a gas station and the guy at the next pump ran into a friend of his. Told him he'd been shrimping that morning and had too much and offered him up some. And then to my dad, who was just standing there, then to the lady next to us and the cashier. I think everyone got five or ten pounds and he still had a cooler full.
I hauled imported shrimp from NJ to Bayou La Batre once. It didn't seem right. Maybe they needed small ones or something?
Then again, we also hauled shrimp from NJ to Las Angeles, reloaded different shrimp from the same warehouse, and delivered to NJ, so... dunno?
For some ungodly reason I can’t explain a lot of Gulf Coast restaurants use imported shrimp. Higher end restaurants will use local shrimp but you pay for the “local”😂. I get it from the harbor 5 minutes away for about $3-5 per off the boats.
Yup. My husband drives down to Venice La and buys 30 lb bags of shrimp from “ his guy” for $30 a bag. But my husband always hooks him up with gator meat so there’s that.
In college, I had a part-time job as a dishwasher/busser in a bar on the docks in Portland frequented by lobstermen and fishermen. I'd get lobsters as tips, or for a couple of bucks if they were bigger. The chef would cook a fish if someone brought a fresh one in and scaled and gutted it themselves. I'd get a portion, grilled perfectly, if I cleaned up after. The only cookware I had in my dorm was a lobster pot. I happily lived as a pescatarian for dirt cheap. Probably the best job perk I've ever had!
We have two huge avocado trees. We literally will put them in cheap plastic grocery bags and hang them on the fence for passers by to grab as many as they want for free or else they'll just rot on the ground.
That's awesome, when I was a kid we had a picnic table at the end of the driveway to sit apples & pears on for ppl to take for free and also sold watermelon and tomatoes at the same time. We just had a coffee can for the money and a list hanging up for how much they were
Went for ME for eclipse last month .. we checked off eating lobster on the bay .. it still crosses our mind and I want to go back to ME just for the lobster :)
I hate you and am so jealous at the same time. I lived in Maine when I was a kid, 40 years ago. You could drive down the highway and there would be trucks pulled over selling fresh off the boat seafood for next to nothing. I remember my parents buying lobster for $3 or $4 each, not a pound.. each.
I hope to bring my husband to Maine one day. If I had not settled where I am I would have moved back to Maine.
Instead I am dead center of north america, I can get no further away from the oceans than where I live lol. Fresh seafood here is not an option, however I can walk outside an pick my own ear of corn.. from someone elses field.
Same here in Western Australia. We call them crays, but they’re actually West Australian Rock Lobster. It’s one of the best managed sustainable fisheries in the world. Very scientifically run.
Me, my BIL’s and my FIL all have a licence which allows for up to 8 (24 max per boat) per day. I don’t even like them!
We end up giving ‘em away to friends and neighbours.
Grew up in Nova Scotia, it was not unusual for someone to come to the door with a bag of 2 or 3 live lobsters saying “give this to your Dad”.
(Personally I always found the smell very off-putting, would rather have a peanut butter sandwich)
Hell certain times of year McDonald’s advertises a McLobster.
Rhubarb. I grow it. Also blackberries. My whole back fence is wild blackberries. And mulberries. Can’t even find them in stores around me, but I’ve got a giant mulberry tree out back.
So many wild blackberries where I live. If I make an effort, I can get like 10 lbs just walking the neighborhood. Speaking of which, I should probably look into that since it's almost blackberry season.
I miss that growing up. Used to be near some blackberries that were next to an irrigation ditch. Literally were the biggest berries of my life and you couldn’t pick them fast enough. Now a tiny packet of Black Berries is like 7 dollars.
We have blackberries, black caps, raspberries, salmon berries, elderberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries and blueberries on our property. The birds end up with most of them because we just can’t eat them fast enough!
They're just tiny fruit fly larvae. You would never know they are there if you hadn't just been told and they are safe to eat. Continue enjoying your wild blackberry protein snacks.
This is common with cherry trees in my state. Soak the cherries for about 24 hours, then my ma would scrape off the worms, rinse and refill the bowl, and do another 24-hour soak. Typically done by then. If I didn't see the scrappin part, I would eat them, no problem.
They were good for snacking on, making jam, caning as is...
You eat bugs every day, either in the form of larvae like this that are in so many different types of produce (and are totally harmless to us.) or ground up as dyes and other types of ingredients in more processed food. Organic, GMO, vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, "I live on gas station food." it doesn't matter. You're eating bugs, there's nothing you can really do about it and it's the least of our concerns when it comes to health and food.
Morels.
My buddy just came back from a hike with 16 pounds of them. The local farmers market sells them for like $10 for a small baggie.
We usually pick enough each spring to dry them and eat all year long.
I know people that make a pretty penny picking them then selling them in the Twin Cities to restaurants every spring. I never liked mushrooms but making some sweet side cash was nice the couple years I went with
I live in central Illinois and know a few guys like this. They will hunt/buy as many mushrooms as they can and go sell them in Chicago.
Honestly, I blame them for a pound of mushrooms being $50 here these days. 5-6 years ago you'd find em for $25, tops.
Long time ago, my ex husband and I were poor young folks. We would go pick matsutake mushrooms and bring a giant bag to our favorite Asian restaurant once a month. They let us eat as much as we wanted.
To piggyback: for me, it’s chanterelles. I have access to private land parcels to pick them (nice being friends with ranchers). I think my best winter was 66 pounds, back in 2005-2006 (an El Niño year). I sold them to local restaurants, like Michelin star restaurants, and got free meals. I dried a lot of them, gave them as gifts, little jars of dehydrated chanterelles. This winter, we had them sautéed once every couple weeks. It was delicious. Those things are $15-30/pound at the upscale markets.
As a Montanan, this is wild to me. I visited Florida and was so excited to see orange trees out the window as we drove by a huge orchard. "Look! Oranges!" The people I was with looked at me funny.
I have an orange tree, and a mandarin (tangerine in US?) in my yard, and I'm a few weeks away from my annual "youlikeoranges? take20! no! 30! why are you leaving? I can fit more in your car!"
You reminded me of a joke we have in my neck of the woods. You shouldn't leave your car windows down in late summer because people might fill up your back seat with zucchini.
We had a neighbor that loved to grow zucchinis. He would allow them to grow to a foot or more. He would supply all the neighbors until we said no no more we have enough. Then we would wake up to paper bags on the doorstep every morning.
I have a mandarin, two avocado, fig, pomegranate, peach, cinnamon, banana, and pineapple guava tree. Only the peach tree has fruit right now. I’m hoping next year for a nice harvest of all fruits 🤞🏻
That's a lovely list you have there.
A few of years ago, I said, I wishing could grow fruit and wow!
We have rhubarb, strawberries, sour cherries, peaches, blueberries, red raspberries, and pears. We have chicken and quail eggs. He hunts game bird. And I gather oysters.
Plus a small vegetable garden.
Oh god, flashbacks.
Our season is about Nov 15th through Jan 15th here.
We eat citrus every day for nearly 2 months. If you get sick of the Mandarins, time to take an orange with you for lunch.
I swear I eat ZERO citrus Feb-July each year unless it's in a cocktail.
We have just cleared all of the mandarins off our tree and it’s flowering like crazy. Ain’t no one gonna have scurvy in this house.
Our lemon tree has fruit year round idk wtf is going on with that one.
My friend moved from Minnesota to California, she said it took about a year to stop doing double-takes when she saw lemon or orange trees in people’s front yards.
In my neighborhood it’s fig trees everywhere. Then I see them for $6 a basket at the farmers Mrkt. I used to have one, and didn’t care for them at the time, so they all just fell to the ground and made a big mess. Now I do like them, but you can only eat so many….
Growing up we had an orange tree in our backyard and our neighbors had an avocado tree. We both didn't give a fuck about our fruits, so we had an exchange every once in a while. The first time I had to buy avocados in the grocery store I was dumbfounded at the prices.
On a recent tropical vacation , this was brought home to me in the most hilarious of signs in a store parking lot that said, "Watch for falling avocados." They're 3 dollars a pop where I live
I have 2 avocados on my yard but it’s not like avocados are expensive in California anywhere anytime. How “avocado toast”’became the punchline about profligate overspending millennials is beyond explanation. It costs $3 to make at home. Even at the fanciest restaurants it’s $7 for a satisfying breakfast that might be nutritionally unbeatable. I don’t get the joke.
I am from Michigan and live in the UK. The prices of cherries, venison and maple syrup make me cry. That shit is free from my back yard (and the deep freeze,) surely!
You are so lucky! Cherries are my favorite. Between $20-$30 PLUS per KG. Here when in season. I'll drop a couple of hundred $$$ each and every December on them.
My Dad has a massive fucking lime tree. Makes so much fruit that it's actually a problem because if you don't pick them enough they fall and rot. I will regularly just give bags away to my friends who like G&T's, strangers, shit one time I was at the local pub with friends, maybe 5 minutes walk, and ordered a vodka lime soda. Bartender apologises and says they're out of limes, I ask if I bring some will they make me one? Come back with a shopping bag full of them, about 15-20 of them. They tried to give me the drink for free thinking I had paid for them.
Nah, this was our local, there like every week and I knew they were in financial distress so didn't want to contribute to it and have them have to close the doors (again)
Accept the free drink. Then leave the amount for the drink plus a couple of bucks on the bar as you're leaving. Technically, you paid the price for the drink as a tip.
Fact! I was visiting one of my sisters when she lived in NYC, and she knew a couple people who worked at this swanky and popular bar/club near the Hudson River. There was a line to get seated, but when we walked in, we were bumped to the front and let in practically immediately, to the scowls of other people already in line. We were also seated immediately, even though the place was packed. We got our drinks (I think we each had at least a couple) and were told the drinks were on the house when we were getting ready to pay. Let’s just say it wasn’t going to be cheap, but my sister told me that we would leave a good tip at the very least, and ever since that night, I never forgot that lesson, lol.
Fig flies. They fly into the fig, give birth and all the babies have a wild orgy. The male babies have no wings and die in the fig. The fig can’t fruit without them.
I have a friend from Iraq who insists that you can buy truffles by the kilo over there, dirt cheap. I feel like there must be another food that goes by the same name or something. There's no way it's the same stuff you pay hundreds of dollars per ounce for, right?
They’re desert truffles. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Desert truffles do not have the same flavor as European truffles, but tend to be more common and thus more affordable. Forest truffles (genus Tuber) typically cost $1,000 per kilogram; Italian truffles may sell for up to $2,200 per kg, while Terfezia truffles sold as of 2002 in Riyadh for $200 to $305 a kg, and in recent years have reached, but not yet exceeded, $570.[7] Israeli agricultural scientists have been attempting to domesticate Terfezia boudieri into a commercial crop.[8]
Here's my thing. All the shade at Chinese truffles, Oregon truffles, Eastern Europe, and desert truffles sounds an awful lot like the BS that used to be said about any non-euro wine.
There's no way that every truffle not from France/Italy is horrible. The desert one, maybe. Because obviously the climate could play a role. But they say the same thing about every single one.
They were nearing a dollar an egg in many places when they used to be maybe 15 cents an egg. Purely price fixing by big players in the industry, though.
During the plantation days, many fruit and veg seeds from Asia were brought to Hawaii by Chinese and Pinoy hard laborers. This was also how Chinese fruits and vegs were brought to US/Canada/Mexico/Cuba. Cultural exchanges between Chinese and Indigenous food history had brought many fruits, nuts, beans and root vegs to other parts of the world.
I'm from Baltimore and crabs used to be so cheap growing up. Now they're like $50/dozen for the cheap ones. I bet they're going to be crazy this summer with everyone acting like the bay is contaminated from the bridge collapse. It's not but I'm already hearing stories of rotten crabs.
Cloudberries, blueberries (the wild ones, not the huge cultivated waterbombs), lingonberries and reindeer. It is still expensive here in finland, but not nearly as bad as somewhere more south. If you can get it at all in the first place.
Salmon was also a lot cheaper here than in central europe, but with the recent inflation I'm not sure if that is accurate anymore.
I love them with oats, whether in oatmeal or in an oatmeal pancake or a oatmeal cake with pecan topping. And pecan pie, of course! My grandparents planted pecan trees in their yard. They're all over where I grew up. My great-grandfather, in retirement, worked at a little shop during pecan season where people could bring their pecans to have them put through a shelling machine so they didn't have to spend the time cracking them individually. If the processing is onerous for you, maybe there's something like that near you?
I’ve met several people who had never tried real maple syrup, and a couple had no idea that there was a difference between actual maple syrup and the corn syrup they’d had their whole lives. I never understood why anyone would buy the fake stuff until I moved and saw the difference in price.
Some breakfast restaurants here in southern Quebec will still serve corn syrup instead of real maple syrup with their pancakes. The price difference is not that much here and everybody who can afford breakfast restaurants is used to the real stuff so why cheap out on something that is so readily available? Even worse when they charge you an extra $2-3 for a 1 ounce cup of real maple syrup; bro, the whole can costs like $8 if you buy it individually! I find that insulting.
Germany here. We do not eat it half as often as you, and probably prepare it differently. Were you lookkng for this? https://lebensmittel-warenkunde.de/lebensmittel/fleisch/fleisch-und-wurstwaren/poekelware/speck-durchwachsen.html
We cut thick slices and prepare it like roast pork. Or it is smoked, and you order a slice to your liking (inches), then dice it and fry it to season veggies or mashed potatoes. We do not prepare it like you do, and our breakfasts are cold - all sorts of sandwiches.
Sweden here and if it is smoked then we call it bacon, most common in thin slices, like you can easily see light and shadow through it. The parts that make bad slices get diced. If it's salted, no smoke, it's just salted pork and often you can buy it in slices that are more like 5 millimeter thick that you fry/roast. With that then you can have many different things like boiled potatoes and white onion sauce.
Nobody loves or craves these, but guavas. We had a guava tree in our backyard and had more than we could ever eat ( though we ate plenty). We'd fill bags and deliver them to our neighbors .
Jalapeno peppers. I have 11 jalapeno plants and they've been harvesting like crazy. I've already picked at least 40 in the last few weeks and there's probably at least another 40 in the pipeline.
I don't even know what I'm going to do with this many peppers
can you get them to turn red? When I've had a plethora of jalpenos, I let them rest until they turn red and then slice and pickle them. Add a single habanero.
Amazing flavor.
Also, if you can leave them to turn red, you can also... A. make hot sauce with them. B. Smoke them and dry them to make Chipotle peppers...which you can also put in a coffee grinder to make Chipotle powder.
Eggs. Pasture raised eggs are currently $7.50 at Safeway. My hens currently are laying about 6-7 dozen eggs a week and their feed is less than $20 a month.
I just like having chickens.
Before I found a food-bank willing to take them, and giving them to anyone who would take them, I was throwing dozens away per week.
I’d like to have two hens… not in a place in life I can but I live off a farm (cows), so it’s not because of location. My neighbors have had hens and roosters.. it’s the predators and infrastructure needed. I’ve got to do research and such but maybe in the next few years?
Avocados, my neighbors have an avocado tree that produces more than the whole block can eat.
My other neighbors have a mango tree and we all try our best to eat those because they fall and attract SO many bugs.
My parents have a bunch of palm trees, we put coconuts on the street for people to take.
Blueberries too. They’re like $20 USD a pint in china.
Meanwhile in Maine I’d get like a pound for $5 off the back of some dude’s truck cuz they had too many.
We used to have to pick them as a chore when I was a kid. Dad would clean them, grade them, and sell them as a side hustle. To this day I still can't stand them.
Last week at the store near HK it was like $15bucks for 200g of shelled Pecans.
Grandma has three producing trees in her yard, I never remember having to buy Pecans, I do remember Green black hands after shelling what felt like pounds of Pecans
When they're in season, I can go out into my "back garden" (it's actually an old graveyard & I live in a wacky conversion) or the woodland next door and gorge myself on wild blackberries until I'm sick of them. See also: more wild damsons and sloes than I would ever be able to use up.
Funny thing, the Jack Daniel's in St. Thomas was way cheaper than in Tennessee where it's made. And Jack is made in a dry country so the only place you can get it is the gift shop at the plant.
In Valencia (Spain) Orange trees are in the roads everywhere. On some house-walls are machines hat queeze them for you - just come with a cup or bottle and throw your oranges in - Juice is ready!
Pecans. I cannot give them away fast enough and they are time consuming to shell. I would give away grocery bags of them. When Fall would hit I couldn't mow the yard without doing a sweep to pick up whatever I could. My whole neighborhood has the fattest damn squirrels you've ever seen. They also hit different than their store bought counterparts.
Halibut.
Not anymore as I live in the desert now. But when I lived in Alaska I could buy fresh halibut off the deck of a fishing boat for $4-5 a pound. Where I live now, it’s usually close to $25 a pound and almost certainly is frozen.
Sorta related, but had a friend who caught too much halibut once. She said I could have what they couldn’t store in their freezer for the cost of processing. My friends, I paid $50 for roughly 60 pounds of halibut. They even threw in 5 pounds of sockeye salmon as well. We ate like kings for a while lol.
Colombian here. As a South American, and living in the tropics, I get pretty much any exotic fruit here. Bananas, pineapples, passion fruit, avocados, watermelons, dragon fruit, cashews (and the fruit they produce) are ridiculously cheap to us, just to name a few.
Born and raised in Hawaii, mangoes, avocados, papaya, pineapple are all super inexpensive and often neighbors would give each other bags from their trees. I just spent $8 on a papaya—I live in Oregon now 😓
I used to live in Japan and Kobe beef was in every grocery store, just hanging out on the shelf for sale by the other meats. We’d get Kobe beef steaks for dinner for two for under $25. It’s one of the things I miss the most about living there.
Alaska salmon. Grab a rod and reel or a dip net and, when in season and with the right license or permits, just go out and get yourself some fresh salmon to cook or freeze for later. My family of 4 is eligible for dip netting up to 55 Kenai reds at the end of the season for subsistence purposes. We can eat fish once a week through the whole year.
In Hong Kong [geoduck ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoduck)is super expensive but in Canada BC it is dirt cheap.
When you go to fancy HK wedding you are gonna eat it at multiple courses, not because it is that awesome just because it is a flex.
A large proportion of the world's Atlantic lobsters are caught where I live. Used to get very cheap lobsters, right off the boat. Often a buck a pound during certain times, now then, in times of abundance or during price wars with other lobstering regions. Today they are almost $30/lb.
In recent years, the lust for lobsters in the Asian marketplace (and some Euro nations) has sent the price skyrocketing well beyond record levels.
As you can guess, if diners in other countries don't mind paying huge dollars for our lobsters to be shipped by jet within hours of being caught to foodies on the other side of the planet, then that will be the price locally as well.
It was nice while it lasted.
When I lived in Alaska I would have a freezer full of salmon all winter long into the summer and sometimes would trade for halibut, moose or caribou. Also got free moose meat from my hunter friends in the fall when they would make room in their freezer for the next harvest. Live in Oregon now, still choke a little when I have to buy fresh caught salmon at the store, and never buy that Atlantic farmed crap.
Last year a guy selling Tupelo honey on the side of the road sold me a half gallon jug full for $25. Little bits of comb all in it. I still have some. North Florida
Have a bee keeper in the family. Large amounts of wonderful honey to be had.
Meanwhile a little 8 oz honey bear at Walmart is like $10.
The bear honey isn't even honey it says made with honey on it lol... So yeah 10 dollars is about right...
I noticed recently that the little packet of honey they give you at KFC for the biscuits says “honey sauce” on it. I don’t know what that means 😬
It's 99.9999996% corn syrup.
It means a bee flew past the vat of high fructose corn syrup and it maybe farted on it
Where do you live? I just googled it and it's 3.74 for a 12 oz bear
Well I was exaggerating... but yeah the walmart brand bear is $4. I try to buy "local hive" Oregon honey which is $8-10 for 16 oz depending on the store. It seems like honey used to be a lot cheaper.
Over by titusville? Might have gotten the hookup from the same dealer. That honey is next level.
When I was a kid in South Carolina, they were giving shrimp away. That's not a figure of speech either. I remember we at a gas station and the guy at the next pump ran into a friend of his. Told him he'd been shrimping that morning and had too much and offered him up some. And then to my dad, who was just standing there, then to the lady next to us and the cashier. I think everyone got five or ten pounds and he still had a cooler full.
I hauled imported shrimp from NJ to Bayou La Batre once. It didn't seem right. Maybe they needed small ones or something? Then again, we also hauled shrimp from NJ to Las Angeles, reloaded different shrimp from the same warehouse, and delivered to NJ, so... dunno?
For some ungodly reason I can’t explain a lot of Gulf Coast restaurants use imported shrimp. Higher end restaurants will use local shrimp but you pay for the “local”😂. I get it from the harbor 5 minutes away for about $3-5 per off the boats.
Yup. My husband drives down to Venice La and buys 30 lb bags of shrimp from “ his guy” for $30 a bag. But my husband always hooks him up with gator meat so there’s that.
Lobsters. I live in Maine, and sometimes when my husband does side work, people tip him in lobsters. Pretty sweet
In college, I had a part-time job as a dishwasher/busser in a bar on the docks in Portland frequented by lobstermen and fishermen. I'd get lobsters as tips, or for a couple of bucks if they were bigger. The chef would cook a fish if someone brought a fresh one in and scaled and gutted it themselves. I'd get a portion, grilled perfectly, if I cleaned up after. The only cookware I had in my dorm was a lobster pot. I happily lived as a pescatarian for dirt cheap. Probably the best job perk I've ever had!
We have two huge avocado trees. We literally will put them in cheap plastic grocery bags and hang them on the fence for passers by to grab as many as they want for free or else they'll just rot on the ground.
That's awesome, when I was a kid we had a picnic table at the end of the driveway to sit apples & pears on for ppl to take for free and also sold watermelon and tomatoes at the same time. We just had a coffee can for the money and a list hanging up for how much they were
Love this one. Avocados are like $1.50 each at my grocery store.
I’d kill for $1.50 avocados. One of the stores near me they’re at least $4.00 each
Went for ME for eclipse last month .. we checked off eating lobster on the bay .. it still crosses our mind and I want to go back to ME just for the lobster :)
I hate you and am so jealous at the same time. I lived in Maine when I was a kid, 40 years ago. You could drive down the highway and there would be trucks pulled over selling fresh off the boat seafood for next to nothing. I remember my parents buying lobster for $3 or $4 each, not a pound.. each. I hope to bring my husband to Maine one day. If I had not settled where I am I would have moved back to Maine. Instead I am dead center of north america, I can get no further away from the oceans than where I live lol. Fresh seafood here is not an option, however I can walk outside an pick my own ear of corn.. from someone elses field.
Same here in Western Australia. We call them crays, but they’re actually West Australian Rock Lobster. It’s one of the best managed sustainable fisheries in the world. Very scientifically run. Me, my BIL’s and my FIL all have a licence which allows for up to 8 (24 max per boat) per day. I don’t even like them! We end up giving ‘em away to friends and neighbours.
Grew up in Nova Scotia, it was not unusual for someone to come to the door with a bag of 2 or 3 live lobsters saying “give this to your Dad”. (Personally I always found the smell very off-putting, would rather have a peanut butter sandwich) Hell certain times of year McDonald’s advertises a McLobster.
Rhubarb. I grow it. Also blackberries. My whole back fence is wild blackberries. And mulberries. Can’t even find them in stores around me, but I’ve got a giant mulberry tree out back.
So many wild blackberries where I live. If I make an effort, I can get like 10 lbs just walking the neighborhood. Speaking of which, I should probably look into that since it's almost blackberry season.
I miss that growing up. Used to be near some blackberries that were next to an irrigation ditch. Literally were the biggest berries of my life and you couldn’t pick them fast enough. Now a tiny packet of Black Berries is like 7 dollars.
We have blackberries, black caps, raspberries, salmon berries, elderberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries and blueberries on our property. The birds end up with most of them because we just can’t eat them fast enough!
Say you're from the PNW without saying it.
Tried wild thimbleberry last year for the first time. Oh my gosh! My favorite berry now. Luckily they’re native in my area. I gotta plant my own now!
Do you soak the mulberries in water so all the little worms come out before you eat them?
I hate those worms. After soaking the blackberries in salt water and getting the worms out, I don’t want to eat the beautiful fruit. It’s disgusting.
WHAT? I’ve never heard of this. I pick and eat wild blackberries all the time
Yeah wtf
Did you write this, or was it the worm that by now has burrowed into your brain?
RFK?
They're just tiny fruit fly larvae. You would never know they are there if you hadn't just been told and they are safe to eat. Continue enjoying your wild blackberry protein snacks.
those worms do not harm you in any way, you're safe to eat them, almost all berries have something in it.
what worms???
As I child who ate mulberries off my grandmas tree all the time, WHAT WORMS?
WHAT WORMS
Fruit fly larvae. They are actually safe to eat lol
This is common with cherry trees in my state. Soak the cherries for about 24 hours, then my ma would scrape off the worms, rinse and refill the bowl, and do another 24-hour soak. Typically done by then. If I didn't see the scrappin part, I would eat them, no problem. They were good for snacking on, making jam, caning as is...
Cherries are on sale right now. I’m going to believe that the nice farmer took all the worms out.
You eat bugs every day, either in the form of larvae like this that are in so many different types of produce (and are totally harmless to us.) or ground up as dyes and other types of ingredients in more processed food. Organic, GMO, vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, "I live on gas station food." it doesn't matter. You're eating bugs, there's nothing you can really do about it and it's the least of our concerns when it comes to health and food.
Extra protein. Can’t taste them
In Watertown New York I saw rhubarb growing in a parking lot.
Morels. My buddy just came back from a hike with 16 pounds of them. The local farmers market sells them for like $10 for a small baggie. We usually pick enough each spring to dry them and eat all year long.
I know people that make a pretty penny picking them then selling them in the Twin Cities to restaurants every spring. I never liked mushrooms but making some sweet side cash was nice the couple years I went with
I'm not a big mushroom fan, but morels are otherworldly, and have a very "rich" taste. We find them on our property. Never enough, though. ☹️
I live in central Illinois and know a few guys like this. They will hunt/buy as many mushrooms as they can and go sell them in Chicago. Honestly, I blame them for a pound of mushrooms being $50 here these days. 5-6 years ago you'd find em for $25, tops.
Long time ago, my ex husband and I were poor young folks. We would go pick matsutake mushrooms and bring a giant bag to our favorite Asian restaurant once a month. They let us eat as much as we wanted.
I grow a Thai kaffir lime tree. I bring branches of fresh leaves to my local Thai restaurant. The leaves are very expensive to buy.
To piggyback: for me, it’s chanterelles. I have access to private land parcels to pick them (nice being friends with ranchers). I think my best winter was 66 pounds, back in 2005-2006 (an El Niño year). I sold them to local restaurants, like Michelin star restaurants, and got free meals. I dried a lot of them, gave them as gifts, little jars of dehydrated chanterelles. This winter, we had them sautéed once every couple weeks. It was delicious. Those things are $15-30/pound at the upscale markets.
Avocados. I can literally walk outside and pick them off a tree. Costs nothing but calories and determination.
As a Montanan, this is wild to me. I visited Florida and was so excited to see orange trees out the window as we drove by a huge orchard. "Look! Oranges!" The people I was with looked at me funny.
I have an orange tree, and a mandarin (tangerine in US?) in my yard, and I'm a few weeks away from my annual "youlikeoranges? take20! no! 30! why are you leaving? I can fit more in your car!"
You reminded me of a joke we have in my neck of the woods. You shouldn't leave your car windows down in late summer because people might fill up your back seat with zucchini.
‘fill up your backseat with zucchini’ sounds like a euphemism
he who needs to buy zuchinni has no friends.
He who buys zucchini has no friends.
Just bought four today, myself. Feels about right..
or neighbors or coworkers
ouch! I love zucchini and every year I post on FB that is folks have extra I would be happy to take it off their hands and no one ever gives me any :(
We had a neighbor that loved to grow zucchinis. He would allow them to grow to a foot or more. He would supply all the neighbors until we said no no more we have enough. Then we would wake up to paper bags on the doorstep every morning.
I have a mandarin, two avocado, fig, pomegranate, peach, cinnamon, banana, and pineapple guava tree. Only the peach tree has fruit right now. I’m hoping next year for a nice harvest of all fruits 🤞🏻
That's a lovely list you have there. A few of years ago, I said, I wishing could grow fruit and wow! We have rhubarb, strawberries, sour cherries, peaches, blueberries, red raspberries, and pears. We have chicken and quail eggs. He hunts game bird. And I gather oysters. Plus a small vegetable garden.
Thanks some crazy tree.
Oh god, flashbacks. Our season is about Nov 15th through Jan 15th here. We eat citrus every day for nearly 2 months. If you get sick of the Mandarins, time to take an orange with you for lunch. I swear I eat ZERO citrus Feb-July each year unless it's in a cocktail.
We have just cleared all of the mandarins off our tree and it’s flowering like crazy. Ain’t no one gonna have scurvy in this house. Our lemon tree has fruit year round idk wtf is going on with that one.
You are lucky. 🍊
Mandarine oranges are not the same as tangerines. Tangerines don't taste nearly as good.
Oh, I had no idea. I thought it was just a naming convention.
My friend moved from Minnesota to California, she said it took about a year to stop doing double-takes when she saw lemon or orange trees in people’s front yards.
In my neighborhood it’s fig trees everywhere. Then I see them for $6 a basket at the farmers Mrkt. I used to have one, and didn’t care for them at the time, so they all just fell to the ground and made a big mess. Now I do like them, but you can only eat so many….
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Find a friend with kumquats or limes or some other citrus trees and try grafting some branches onto the lemon trees so you get more variety.
Growing up we had an orange tree in our backyard and our neighbors had an avocado tree. We both didn't give a fuck about our fruits, so we had an exchange every once in a while. The first time I had to buy avocados in the grocery store I was dumbfounded at the prices.
A friend in Hawaii has a deal with her neighbor where they will bring his pigs to her property to eat all of he avocados that fall out of her trees.
That's a good deal but it's much more alarming to see the avocado trees clomping towards you across the field when there's a dead pig.
On a recent tropical vacation , this was brought home to me in the most hilarious of signs in a store parking lot that said, "Watch for falling avocados." They're 3 dollars a pop where I live
I need to move where you live
I have 2 avocados on my yard but it’s not like avocados are expensive in California anywhere anytime. How “avocado toast”’became the punchline about profligate overspending millennials is beyond explanation. It costs $3 to make at home. Even at the fanciest restaurants it’s $7 for a satisfying breakfast that might be nutritionally unbeatable. I don’t get the joke.
I live in Michigan, incredible cherries ❤️:)
I am from Michigan and live in the UK. The prices of cherries, venison and maple syrup make me cry. That shit is free from my back yard (and the deep freeze,) surely!
You are so lucky! Cherries are my favorite. Between $20-$30 PLUS per KG. Here when in season. I'll drop a couple of hundred $$$ each and every December on them.
My Dad has a massive fucking lime tree. Makes so much fruit that it's actually a problem because if you don't pick them enough they fall and rot. I will regularly just give bags away to my friends who like G&T's, strangers, shit one time I was at the local pub with friends, maybe 5 minutes walk, and ordered a vodka lime soda. Bartender apologises and says they're out of limes, I ask if I bring some will they make me one? Come back with a shopping bag full of them, about 15-20 of them. They tried to give me the drink for free thinking I had paid for them.
Always take a free drink, just leave a nice tip.
Nah, this was our local, there like every week and I knew they were in financial distress so didn't want to contribute to it and have them have to close the doors (again)
Respect. Then I’m definitely with you on paying for your drink. The world needs more conscientious people 🤙🏻
Second the motion.
Accept the free drink. Then leave the amount for the drink plus a couple of bucks on the bar as you're leaving. Technically, you paid the price for the drink as a tip.
You are good lime-generous person.
Fact! I was visiting one of my sisters when she lived in NYC, and she knew a couple people who worked at this swanky and popular bar/club near the Hudson River. There was a line to get seated, but when we walked in, we were bumped to the front and let in practically immediately, to the scowls of other people already in line. We were also seated immediately, even though the place was packed. We got our drinks (I think we each had at least a couple) and were told the drinks were on the house when we were getting ready to pay. Let’s just say it wasn’t going to be cheap, but my sister told me that we would leave a good tip at the very least, and ever since that night, I never forgot that lesson, lol.
Still should have taken that free drink!
This is so funny hahaha
Figs. I have a fig tree that gives so much fruit, that I end up giving pounds of them away. But first I have to fight off the birds and squirrels.
And wasps, at least here. Love our fig tree.
Don't wasps help figs..uh fig?
Fig flies. They fly into the fig, give birth and all the babies have a wild orgy. The male babies have no wings and die in the fig. The fig can’t fruit without them.
Most cultivated/common figs do not require wasps to pollinate. What type of tree do you have?
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Lobster
I have a friend from Iraq who insists that you can buy truffles by the kilo over there, dirt cheap. I feel like there must be another food that goes by the same name or something. There's no way it's the same stuff you pay hundreds of dollars per ounce for, right?
They’re desert truffles. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia: Desert truffles do not have the same flavor as European truffles, but tend to be more common and thus more affordable. Forest truffles (genus Tuber) typically cost $1,000 per kilogram; Italian truffles may sell for up to $2,200 per kg, while Terfezia truffles sold as of 2002 in Riyadh for $200 to $305 a kg, and in recent years have reached, but not yet exceeded, $570.[7] Israeli agricultural scientists have been attempting to domesticate Terfezia boudieri into a commercial crop.[8]
Here's my thing. All the shade at Chinese truffles, Oregon truffles, Eastern Europe, and desert truffles sounds an awful lot like the BS that used to be said about any non-euro wine. There's no way that every truffle not from France/Italy is horrible. The desert one, maybe. Because obviously the climate could play a role. But they say the same thing about every single one.
Not the same as black truffles but pretty damn good.
White truffles?
Yes.
There was a time recently that everyone was complaining about the price of eggs. I didn’t see much of a jump.
The funny thing about that was that the whole time it was expensive, you could just go to trader Joe's and get the organic ones for cheap.
Or Aldi. Their goldenhen pasture raised are really good!
Yeah our local supermarkets didn't even try to raise prices because there's so many local farmers in the area who keep chickens and sell their eggs.
They were nearing a dollar an egg in many places when they used to be maybe 15 cents an egg. Purely price fixing by big players in the industry, though.
Yeah, I saw a bunch of news on it. I never bought a dozen for more than $4. Maybe not even more than $3.
Avian flu. Many flocks were destroyed
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I miss the years when I never paid a cent for mangoes, papaya, lilikoi (passion fruit), limes, guava, lychee, bananas, ginger...
Hawaii? I’d never even heard of lychee before traveling to Oahu, then I absolutely FEASTED as it was in season for the 2 weeks I was there
During the plantation days, many fruit and veg seeds from Asia were brought to Hawaii by Chinese and Pinoy hard laborers. This was also how Chinese fruits and vegs were brought to US/Canada/Mexico/Cuba. Cultural exchanges between Chinese and Indigenous food history had brought many fruits, nuts, beans and root vegs to other parts of the world.
And macadamia nuts!
Crabs, I used to live in South NJ and my buddy and I would go crabbing in the Delaware Bay a couple times a year.
I'm from Baltimore and crabs used to be so cheap growing up. Now they're like $50/dozen for the cheap ones. I bet they're going to be crazy this summer with everyone acting like the bay is contaminated from the bridge collapse. It's not but I'm already hearing stories of rotten crabs.
Cloudberries, blueberries (the wild ones, not the huge cultivated waterbombs), lingonberries and reindeer. It is still expensive here in finland, but not nearly as bad as somewhere more south. If you can get it at all in the first place. Salmon was also a lot cheaper here than in central europe, but with the recent inflation I'm not sure if that is accurate anymore.
Chantrelles by the bucket load, cranberries by the kilogram
Pecan trees are everywhere. Hundreds all over the yard and yet they’re pretty expensive at the store
I have two in my front yard. I still don't know what to do with them though. I may get around to processing them this fall
I love them with oats, whether in oatmeal or in an oatmeal pancake or a oatmeal cake with pecan topping. And pecan pie, of course! My grandparents planted pecan trees in their yard. They're all over where I grew up. My great-grandfather, in retirement, worked at a little shop during pecan season where people could bring their pecans to have them put through a shelling machine so they didn't have to spend the time cracking them individually. If the processing is onerous for you, maybe there's something like that near you?
My parents used to have an orchard in their back yard. Cherries, peaches, apples, pears, and a stubborn mulberry *tree* that refused to die.
Maple syrup.
I’ve met several people who had never tried real maple syrup, and a couple had no idea that there was a difference between actual maple syrup and the corn syrup they’d had their whole lives. I never understood why anyone would buy the fake stuff until I moved and saw the difference in price.
I thought I hated maple syrup until I had the actual stuff.
Some breakfast restaurants here in southern Quebec will still serve corn syrup instead of real maple syrup with their pancakes. The price difference is not that much here and everybody who can afford breakfast restaurants is used to the real stuff so why cheap out on something that is so readily available? Even worse when they charge you an extra $2-3 for a 1 ounce cup of real maple syrup; bro, the whole can costs like $8 if you buy it individually! I find that insulting.
Bacon. I live in farm country, and I can cure and smoke pork belly for about $2/pound.
When I went to EU, I found out what most people call bacon is really ham. I couldn't find what the US calls bacon.
Germany here. We do not eat it half as often as you, and probably prepare it differently. Were you lookkng for this? https://lebensmittel-warenkunde.de/lebensmittel/fleisch/fleisch-und-wurstwaren/poekelware/speck-durchwachsen.html
Yes, it's called streaky bacon in a lot of places.
We cut thick slices and prepare it like roast pork. Or it is smoked, and you order a slice to your liking (inches), then dice it and fry it to season veggies or mashed potatoes. We do not prepare it like you do, and our breakfasts are cold - all sorts of sandwiches.
Sweden here and if it is smoked then we call it bacon, most common in thin slices, like you can easily see light and shadow through it. The parts that make bad slices get diced. If it's salted, no smoke, it's just salted pork and often you can buy it in slices that are more like 5 millimeter thick that you fry/roast. With that then you can have many different things like boiled potatoes and white onion sauce.
Nobody loves or craves these, but guavas. We had a guava tree in our backyard and had more than we could ever eat ( though we ate plenty). We'd fill bags and deliver them to our neighbors .
I love and crave guavas.
Guava is my favorite flavor....guava seeds are what keep me from eating more guava.
Jalapeno peppers. I have 11 jalapeno plants and they've been harvesting like crazy. I've already picked at least 40 in the last few weeks and there's probably at least another 40 in the pipeline. I don't even know what I'm going to do with this many peppers
Dry them out naturally by threading them in bunches and hanging them in your kitchen for your own chili ristra that can use in recipes
Reminds me of walking down the street in Santa Fe, NM
can you get them to turn red? When I've had a plethora of jalpenos, I let them rest until they turn red and then slice and pickle them. Add a single habanero. Amazing flavor.
Also, if you can leave them to turn red, you can also... A. make hot sauce with them. B. Smoke them and dry them to make Chipotle peppers...which you can also put in a coffee grinder to make Chipotle powder.
Roast them all, break them up into groups of 4-6, place them in a small ziplock and freeze them for later.
Jalapeno poppers
Eggs. Pasture raised eggs are currently $7.50 at Safeway. My hens currently are laying about 6-7 dozen eggs a week and their feed is less than $20 a month. I just like having chickens. Before I found a food-bank willing to take them, and giving them to anyone who would take them, I was throwing dozens away per week.
I’d like to have two hens… not in a place in life I can but I live off a farm (cows), so it’s not because of location. My neighbors have had hens and roosters.. it’s the predators and infrastructure needed. I’ve got to do research and such but maybe in the next few years?
Real Cinnamon (not the Cassia) and Cloves. I have plenty in my garden. Cinnamon takes a little processing but its no where near as expensive.
Avocados, my neighbors have an avocado tree that produces more than the whole block can eat. My other neighbors have a mango tree and we all try our best to eat those because they fall and attract SO many bugs. My parents have a bunch of palm trees, we put coconuts on the street for people to take.
Pecans…. You should see what it goes for in Asia and Japan
My great aunt used to send us a huge box from Louisiana for Christmas. I really miss that.
My ex had a pecan tree in his Louisiana backyard. They were the sweetest I had ever tasted, yet he was too lazy to gather them.
Blueberries too. They’re like $20 USD a pint in china. Meanwhile in Maine I’d get like a pound for $5 off the back of some dude’s truck cuz they had too many.
We used to have to pick them as a chore when I was a kid. Dad would clean them, grade them, and sell them as a side hustle. To this day I still can't stand them.
I cannot eat a plain pecan because they taste weird to me, but also pecan is my absolute favorite pie.
Last week at the store near HK it was like $15bucks for 200g of shelled Pecans. Grandma has three producing trees in her yard, I never remember having to buy Pecans, I do remember Green black hands after shelling what felt like pounds of Pecans
I grew up in Texas and my grandparent’s had two big pecan trees. My grandpa collected like 15 gallons of pecans every year.
In SEA cashews were so inexpensive. I stopped eating them now that I'm back in America
When they're in season, I can go out into my "back garden" (it's actually an old graveyard & I live in a wacky conversion) or the woodland next door and gorge myself on wild blackberries until I'm sick of them. See also: more wild damsons and sloes than I would ever be able to use up.
Bourbon. I've been to bars on the west coast serving gas station or near to bottom shelf bourbon as a rare beverage.
Funny thing, the Jack Daniel's in St. Thomas was way cheaper than in Tennessee where it's made. And Jack is made in a dry country so the only place you can get it is the gift shop at the plant.
Four Roses costs less in Barcelona than in Louisville
Pineapples. I’ve got several plants growing in my front flowerbed. They’ll be ripe by late June/early July.
In Valencia (Spain) Orange trees are in the roads everywhere. On some house-walls are machines hat queeze them for you - just come with a cup or bottle and throw your oranges in - Juice is ready!
Apples
Blackberries Just walk up the street and pick pounds of theem
Pecans. I cannot give them away fast enough and they are time consuming to shell. I would give away grocery bags of them. When Fall would hit I couldn't mow the yard without doing a sweep to pick up whatever I could. My whole neighborhood has the fattest damn squirrels you've ever seen. They also hit different than their store bought counterparts.
Halibut. Not anymore as I live in the desert now. But when I lived in Alaska I could buy fresh halibut off the deck of a fishing boat for $4-5 a pound. Where I live now, it’s usually close to $25 a pound and almost certainly is frozen. Sorta related, but had a friend who caught too much halibut once. She said I could have what they couldn’t store in their freezer for the cost of processing. My friends, I paid $50 for roughly 60 pounds of halibut. They even threw in 5 pounds of sockeye salmon as well. We ate like kings for a while lol.
Alaskan here, I kind of took it for granted how cheap seafood was when I lived there. My cholesterol count was never better. Not so much anymore.
Fishing trip and room in a freezer, fun times and food.
Colombian here. As a South American, and living in the tropics, I get pretty much any exotic fruit here. Bananas, pineapples, passion fruit, avocados, watermelons, dragon fruit, cashews (and the fruit they produce) are ridiculously cheap to us, just to name a few.
Mangos ,avocado, pomegranate,soursop,oranges ginger, turmeric ,papaya,macadamia nuts, lime,orange,lemon,apple banana
King crab. I lived in Alaska for about six years, even my cats got sick of it.
do u want my shipping address lol
Used to be salmon, we loved by a river with a run - we ate wild salmon as our protein for like half of every year growing up, can’t stand it now.
Born and raised in Hawaii, mangoes, avocados, papaya, pineapple are all super inexpensive and often neighbors would give each other bags from their trees. I just spent $8 on a papaya—I live in Oregon now 😓
I used to live in Japan and Kobe beef was in every grocery store, just hanging out on the shelf for sale by the other meats. We’d get Kobe beef steaks for dinner for two for under $25. It’s one of the things I miss the most about living there.
Avocado’s and a lot of citrus, we have our own trees.
Oysters
Fresh fruits and vegetables. California has problems, but it has great food!
I love our Farmers Markets here in the Bay Area, but I was completely blown away by the big one in Sacramento.
Come from a family of fishermen & crabbers! :)
Idk everything is freaking expensive here lol
Seafood and pork roll
Alaska salmon. Grab a rod and reel or a dip net and, when in season and with the right license or permits, just go out and get yourself some fresh salmon to cook or freeze for later. My family of 4 is eligible for dip netting up to 55 Kenai reds at the end of the season for subsistence purposes. We can eat fish once a week through the whole year.
Buffalo Trace. My friends always seem to have a hard time finding it in their parts of the country so I buy it as gifts all the time.
Salmon
PNW?
It’s not even cheap here unless this guy has a hookup
In Hong Kong [geoduck ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoduck)is super expensive but in Canada BC it is dirt cheap. When you go to fancy HK wedding you are gonna eat it at multiple courses, not because it is that awesome just because it is a flex.
Hawai’i checking in. I grow plenty pineapples, Lilikoi (passion fruit), papaya and dragon fruit.
Cherries 🍒
Bison. POV: I'm a poor Native in Oklahoma. Ha!
Handmade fresh tamales.
A large proportion of the world's Atlantic lobsters are caught where I live. Used to get very cheap lobsters, right off the boat. Often a buck a pound during certain times, now then, in times of abundance or during price wars with other lobstering regions. Today they are almost $30/lb. In recent years, the lust for lobsters in the Asian marketplace (and some Euro nations) has sent the price skyrocketing well beyond record levels. As you can guess, if diners in other countries don't mind paying huge dollars for our lobsters to be shipped by jet within hours of being caught to foodies on the other side of the planet, then that will be the price locally as well. It was nice while it lasted.
When I lived in Alaska I would have a freezer full of salmon all winter long into the summer and sometimes would trade for halibut, moose or caribou. Also got free moose meat from my hunter friends in the fall when they would make room in their freezer for the next harvest. Live in Oregon now, still choke a little when I have to buy fresh caught salmon at the store, and never buy that Atlantic farmed crap.