1. pharyngula
  2. You know you're famous when…

You know you're famous when…

By pharyngula on December 17, 2007.

…people send you their weird and suggestively shaped fruit and vegetables. This reminds me of something:

i-26d8c7509ef9c23f0d1e8a70f340dfe4-weird_fruit.jpg

Thanks, Ema! It even smells nice and lemony.

Tags
Weirdness

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I, for one, welcome our new plant overlords.

What is that? A squash?

By shiftlessbum (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

shiftlessbum: Its a lemon.

Hmm. Would be interesting to see if some critical gene malfunctioned, or this was some class of infection, the later of which does some odd things to fruit, but never, from my experience, causing the internal segmentation to be expressed externally...

Egad, someone has been trying transgenic experiments on crossing lemons and seafood! The horror!

I can see it now:

Oh, what will I have? Hmm. The octo-lemon looks good but I think I'll order the butter-lemon-lobsters, please.

Sorry. 1-18-08. This January.

Slusho zoom!

You just know there's an ER doctor somewhere who's removed one of these from someone's heinie.

"Honestly Doc, I was just changing a lightbulb above the produce section when I slipped and fell."

If this miracle isn't proof of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster I don't what is. The debate is over and the followers of Scientism and the Atheist Religion should hang their heads in shame at this irrefutable evidence.

By noodlesoup (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

That is truly sublime. Or should I say, sublemon.

Proof positive that Cthulhu will someday soon when the stars are right rise up and destroy us all!

By anti-nonsense (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

I see the error of my atheistic ways now. Let's all bow down and worship that... lemony thing.

And just in time for Cthulhumas as well! (Warning! Warning! Shameless self-promotion detected. Self-destruct initiated.)

@Stevie_C
Here's hoping that it's a Cthulu flick and not a giant whale movie.

ttttttttttttttttooooooooooo ccccccccccooooooooooooooolllll

btw enlighten this ignorant fool - does the concept of Cthulhu
mock the irrational fear of humans for invertebrates ?

By astrolieber (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

Cthulhu fhtagn.

By John Done (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

That is truly sublime. Or should I say, sublemon.

Posted by: Kseniya

I am not afraid to admit it. I laughed.

Heh! Sorry for being so forward, but I saw it in the store and I was commanded by the Squidspirit to send it to you as a Squidmas offering.

It's a "Buddha's Hand" citrus. It's used in cooking because the pith isn't bitter, as it is in most citrus. Because of that, you don't have to be as careful when you zest it AND, because of the non-bitter pith, you can incorporate the entire peel in dishes. Whereas with lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, etc., if you're not careful and get that nasty pith in your dish. For example, if I'd have gotten the lemon zest in my aioli last night, it'd have ruined my scallops with lemon-aioli dressing. But I didn't.

Instead I stupidly left the aioli near the stove when I was saute'ing the scallops and broke the sauce, which looked gross and became lumpy. Can't win them all.

They say the monster is "original". Also there may be giant sea lice or something that the giant monster sheds and they also terrorize Manhattan. As well as some sort of virus that makes people explode. It may have something to do with Slusho.

For some reason--the citrus/seafood juxtaposition?--this reminds me of the classic old National Lampoon Radio Hour production of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," in which, following the oh-so-sophisticated Alistair-Cooke-style introduction, the titular character (played, I realize in hindsight, by the then-unknown Bill Murray) yells, "Everybody get out of here, there's a lobster loose! Oh, my god, it's loose! Cover yourselves in hot butter, and carry lemons just in case!" etc.
Well, it was damn funny on the radio. If you were stoned at the time.
ahem.

Hey, that's one funny-looking fruit!

By Sven DiMilo (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

The explanation is simple; it's a case of a squid virus infecting a vegetable.

By William Geoghegan (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

Just think: If you lived in Fresno you could have a whole tree of those.

OK, OK, waiting for quiet here.

I see them in Bay Area nurseries too, but I haven't seen one growing in anyone's yard here yet. And they do smell good, don't they? Scent up the house before you use them in a nice squid-and-lemon-zest dish. I bet it would make an interesting simple syrup or flavored vodka. With the right container you could leave the fruit whole in the vodka and out it on display.

Or you could just worship it for the holidays.

I suppose you COULD grow them in Fresno, but I've lived in the 'No for 14 years and had never seen a "Buddha's Hand" until about a year ago. It was in the Produce (sorry P.Z., not the Seafood) section of Whole Foods and was going for 8-9 bucks a pop! Somehow I don't think they're grown locally.
BTW how did Fresno get into the conversation anyway?

By Ego, Egoing, Egone (not verified) on 17 Dec 2007 #permalink

Non-bitter pith, you say?

Hmm, I bet that would make some mean Limoncello.

Nummy!

This is one of the things I love about Texas.

We have creationists coming out of the woodwork and sewers, but we also have Herman E. Butt and his supermarkets. The markets are more demurely labeled "H.E.B" or, in yuppiville, Central Market.

Kathryn and I found a bin of those things in Central Market Saturday night. You need a Central Market up there, P.Z.

Need a recipe?
http://www.sanfranciscofoodie.com/scraps/buddhasHand.htm

#31--

By "right container", I assume you mean the appropriate ground-glass-stoppered specimen jar, with off-center typewritten paper label, reading "Foetal Cthulhu" with a collection date and location. As the fruit fades and the jar gathers a coating of dust, it just looks better. Eventually, visitors to your laboratory... er, house... will be shocked by its appearance, and then even more shocked when you take a swig of the formaldehyde...

Probably like heike crabs, are artifially selected by humans to evolve/exist, for resemblance to Buddha's hand/fingers...