katherinehillier's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
Bouye
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Drinks

Bouye

Juice from the Baobab tree “tastes like sunshine” and treats dysentery.
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Szechuan Button
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Ingredients & Condiments

Szechuan Button

This herb gives cocktails another kind of buzz.
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Kala Jamun
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Sweets

Kala Jamun

These dark fried milk balls are flecked with gold and dipped in scented syrup.
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Paan
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Prepared Foods

Paan

This chewable Indian digestive soothes stomachs, freshens breath, and might give you cancer.
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Longevity Peach
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Sweets

Longevity Peach

These buns artfully resemble peaches and represent immortality.
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Stinging Nettles
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Fruits & Vegetables

Stinging Nettles

Boil away this plant's poisonous hairs, and you're left with a tasty, spinach-like leaf.
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Bridal Veil Stinkhorn
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Ingredients & Condiments

Bridal Veil Stinkhorn

This pretty mushroom smells like rotting flesh.
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Chaga Mushroom
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Chaga Mushroom

This coffee additive and killer of trees has a reputation as a medical marvel.
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Akutuq
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Prepared Foods

Akutuq

Whipping snow, seal oil, and berries into a frosty treat takes a very deft hand.
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Pulque
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Pulque

Tequila's ancient, fermented cousin is making a comeback in Mexico City.
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Strawberry Tree Fruit
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Fruits & Vegetables

Strawberry Tree Fruit

The lychee-looking fruit appears in everything from jam and liqueur to the Aeneid and Madrid's flag.
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Yule Log Cake
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Sweets

Yule Log Cake

These holiday cakes link Christmas to the Norse god of lightning.
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Lampreia de Ovos
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Sweets

Lampreia de Ovos

With this egg-based Christmas dessert, Portuguese pastelarias celebrate a bloodsucking fish.
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Black Cake
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Sweets

Black Cake

Fruit soaks in rum for up to a year to make this rich Caribbean Christmas cake.
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Lithuanian Spit Cake
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Sweets

Lithuanian Spit Cake

This dessert is roasted over a fire and looks like a tree.
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Sugar on Snow
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Sweets

Sugar on Snow

Where maple sap flows, all one needs to make taffy is snow.
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Salep
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Drinks

Salep

A flour made from orchid roots makes for a popular Turkish drink.
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Huitlacoche
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Ingredients & Condiments

Huitlacoche

The Mexican fungal delicacy that makes corn taste like a mushroom.
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Kransekake
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Sweets

Kransekake

For special occasions, Norwegians stack 18 rings of cake into a tower.
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Salsagheti
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Sweets

Salsagheti

This Mexican candy reimagines a spaghetti dinner with spicy-sour gummy noodles and tamarind sauce.
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