On 03/06/2016 09:12 AM, MICHAEL LOO -> DAVE DRUM wrote:

 ML> Speaking of which, Swisher is having trouble with his
 ML> FIDO feed again. I figure there's no better way to get him
 ML> back here than post something rude and riskay.

Well I did want to snipe at you for that comment about Fancy Feast, assuming it
was aimed at me.  I only buy it so I can put the cats medicine on it, liquid
for those who don't know, she has a hyperactive thyroid.  I figure she's had
enough abuse in her kittenhood from humans, so I'd like to try and make it
easier on her in her declining years.  She's now 13, had a birthday on the 28th
of last month.

Speaking of aging:

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05

      Title: Ripe Fruits - Part 4
 Categories: Fruits, Ffbb, Info
      Yield: 1 Info


       16.  And the last three categories of fruit do ripen after
  harvest?
       Yes.  They are all climacteric fruits, and as long as they are
  picked fully mature in size and shape, they will ripen to some extent
  and in some ways.
       Category Three includes fruits that ripen in color, texture, and
  juiciness but do not improve in sweetness or flavor.  These include
  apricots, blueberries, cantaloupes, casabas, crenshaws, figs,
  honeydews, nectarines, passion fruit, peaches, Persian melons,
  persimmons, and plums. They will not grow much sweeter after harvest
  because they contain no starch to turn into sugar.  When you ripen
  them at home, the most you can expect is an attractive, juicy fruit
  no more flavorful than the day it was picked.  If you're lucky.
       But you must buy them physically mature.  Mature peaches,
  nectarines, plums, and apricots have fully developed shoulders (the
  rounded area around the stem) and sutures (the seam that runs along
  one side); they have just begun to soften; and the background color
  of their skin shows no trace of green (except for green varieties).
  Pay no attention to the rosy blush - it is the background color that
  matters.  You should buy apricots ready to eat, but peaches,
  nectarines, and plums can be ripened at room temperature in a paper
  bag.
       Category Four is for fruits that do get sweeter after harvesting
  ~ apples, cherimoyas, kiwis, mangoes, papayas, pears, sapotes, and
  soursops. As they mature, they convert sugars from the plants leaves
  into starch; during ripening, they convert these starch reserves back
  into sugar and will grow sweeter, on the tree or off. They are the
  darlings of commerce because they can be picked mature but unripe,
  and the advance of ripening can be arrested by refrigeration,
  sometimes in a controlled atmosphere low in oxygen.  Apples and pears
  do especially well.  Pears, in fact, become mushy and mealy when
  ripened completely on the tree; a period of cool storage before final
  ripening improves their texture.  We are very luck pears can be
  stored, because a ripe pear stays perfect for less than a day.
       Most apples in North America are harvested between July and
  November; cold storage makes them available year-round, often to the
  detriment of flavor and crispness.  Long cold storage followed by
  ethylene ripening has been shown to produce kiwifruit with less
  sugar, bananas with less flavor, and apples and pears with less of
  both.
       Buy mangoes when at least some of the green has turned yellow or
  red (unless you have run across the evergreen variety); avoid those
  with black spots, which may later penetrate the flesh.
       But don't expect the proper aroma to develop in fruit picked long
  before it was ripe.  Aromatic flavor compounds are not synthesized
  normally after a fruit is picked; astringent and bitter compounds no
  longer fade away.  That's why aroma may be the best way to tell how
  ripe a piece of fruit was when it was picked.
       Bananas are along in Category Five because they ripen in nearly
  every way after harvest.  The world champions of starch conversion,
  they go from 1 percent sugar and 25 percent starch to 15 percent
  sugar and 1 percent starch during ripening.  And the simple banana
  aroma (also known as isoamyl acetate) does develop off the tree,
  though it will not quite compare with the more complex perfume of a
  nearly tree-ripened specimen.
       When most commercially grown bananas are picked, they are mature
  but still completely green.  Turn this to your advantage: buy them
  green, if you have the time to let them ripen.  Hard, green bananas
  are less likely to have been injured in handling that those that have
  softened and yellowed on the way.  Buy them with the stems fully
  attached and without splits in the skin.  Ripen in a paper bag until
  fully yellow with little brown specks.  Then refrigerate what you
  cannot eat immediately, but expect the skins to turn black.
       17.  Why is fruit sometime gassed with ethylene?
       The industry prefers the word "treated."  As we have learned,
  ethylene is a fruit's own internal ripening hormone.  In heavy
  breathing climacteric fruit, Categories Three though Five, brief
  exposure to the gas triggers the fruit's own production of the
  hormone and with it whatever ripening potential the fruit possesses.
  When you place these fruts in a loosely closed brown paper bag at
  room temperature, the natural ethylene concentrates and speeds the
  process. Putting a ripe apple or banana in the bag can also help
  because these fruits generate ethylene like mad.  The bag must be
  permeable enough to allow carbon dioxide produced by the ripening
  fruit to escape and oxygen to enter.  Cut off from oxygen, fruit
  ferments.  That's the benign side of ethylene.  The fruit industry
  also use artificial ethylene treatment to hide incalculable sins.
       18.  Didn't you promise to explain the best way of choosing a
  melon?
       I was just coming to that.  If only there were one simple rule
  for all melons, nature's most succulent creation!  Remember that
  melons are climacteric - they can continue to ripen after harvest.
  But they never get much sweeter than the day they were picked.  Buy
  melons - well formed, heavy for their size, without injuries or flat
  areas. When netted melons like cantaloupes are mature, the netting
  will be raised instead of flat and the skin between will be tan or
  yellow, not green.  Crenshaws are the king of melons: juicy,
  perfumed, honeyed, tender.  Some mature crenshaws may stay green
  rather than turn gold, except on the "ground spot," the place where
  the melon rested on the earth.  The background color of a Persian
  melon can be light green at maturity.  In honeydew, that potentially
  ambrosial but hard-to-choose treasure, the skin must be cream colored
  (not stark white), without a trace of green.  As with other smooth
  melons, the skin should feel slightly waxy or tacky.
       The round depression at one end of many melons is where the stem
  was attached; if it is smooth, without ragged edges, the melon was
  ripe enough to slip easily from the stem.  Softening, aroma, and
  waxiness begin at the opposite or blossom end, which is where
  sniffing will tell you worlds about how sweet and perfumed the melon
  is inside. Experts clash on whether the aroma of an uncut honeydew is
  expressive. Casabas have little aroma and are an inferior species
  overall.  Sorry.

MMMMM

---