Maybe some folks (like Pete) should consider rotating their pots just a tad more frequently.
Posted on 11/23/2017 6:23:54 PM PST by blam
If you’ve ever noticed a strange, not-entirely-pleasant scent coming from your urine after you eat asparagus, you’re definitely not alone.
Distinguished thinkers as varied as Scottish mathematician and physician John Arbuthnot (who wrote in a 1731 book that “asparagus…affects the urine with a foetid smell”) and Marcel Proust (who wrote how the vegetable “transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume”) have commented on the phenomenon.
Even Benjamin Franklin took note, stating in a 1781 letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels that “A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour” (he was trying to convince the academy to “To discover some Drug…that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes”—a goal that, alas, modern science has still not achieved).
But modern science has, at least, shed some light on why this one particular vegetable has such an unusual and potent impact on the scent of urine. Scientists tell us that the asparagus-urine link all comes down to one chemical: asparagusic acid.
Asparagusic acid, as the name implies, is (to our knowledge) only found in asparagus. When our bodies digest the vegetable, they break down this chemical into a group of related sulfur-containing compounds with long, complicated names (including dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethyl sulfone). As with many other substances that include sulfur—such as garlic, skunk spray and odorized natural gas—these sulfur-containing molecules convey a powerful, typically unpleasant scent.
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(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
I bought some commercially pickled ones. I didn’t find them to be nearly as good as the homemade ones.
It DOES add a layer of flavor..... of lye soap.
Italians don’t use cilantro... maybe it’s that genetic side that makes it repulsive. Love to grow it for other people, though, pretty little plant.
nd, you know, Hillary only carried Minnesota by 1.5% A real Republican could not win there, but a Trumpian might be able to pull it off.
Good Lord
http://www.mashed.com/36715/real-reason-many-people-hate-cilantro/
Goes *way* into the cilantro genetic mystery.
So, you’re saying that most everyone else can tell I’ve eaten asparagus, but I can’t? Thing is, I can smell asparagus cooking, so the ‘asparagus odor I can smell is chemically different than the smell in my urine? Cool, I’ve been blessed.
And yes, cilantro, to me has a mild soapy flavor. Doesn’t ruin a dish for me, but certainly doesn’t enhance it.
I didn’t realize that Italians never use cilantro. Maybe they do have different genes. I love how Italians don’t have any special interest in other ethnic foods, because their own food is so pure and good. I got a kick out of that when we stayed with family (my ex’s family) there. Real Italian food = CLEAN FRESH Food! Straight from the garden or butchering. Japan also has that seasonal freshness push. I look forward to going to Japan when my son does a semester there, to see what that is like.
The smell of asparagus cooking is good. Or on the plate, with butter or that white sauce they service it with in Europe. In the pee, it does NOT smell pleasant at all.
One of my sons, the first time he smelled it in his pee, age 3, decided never to eat it again after, and he never has.
We were cruising around the former East Germany last summer on a Luther tour and passed a number of asparagus fields. I had recognized them for what they were, but the German lady bus driver pointed them out. Then she said that if the Germans bend over 2 or 3 times they have a sore back, thus people come from Poland to do the manual labor involved in the asparagus production. “The Polish are the German Mexicans,” she said.
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A life saver (literally) for those that have kidney problems!
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Unusual for Smithsonian to get anything close to right!
They’re right up there with National Gigolographic, and (un)Scientific American.
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(That would tend to give it that hint of a Dawn flavoring.)
(Just kidding!!!) :-)
cilantro or coriander = “Vile stuff.”
That is some nasty sh!t! you got that right. traveled the world and ate some might ‘strange’ foods, love them ALL.
Butt that green nasty crap is revolting to my tastebuds!
and they just HAVE to add that crap to the salsa in every dam Mexican restaurant!
and i grew up in La with sucking on a McIlhenny bottle in my crib! flavor is something i eat for!!
So, I read this article years ago and it stated that employees of McIlhenny "Tabasco Sauce", received a CASE every month !!!
That's a lot of Tabasco Sauce.
I'm just looking for confirmation since I've shared that "Fact/assertion" with a number of people.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Not sure about the employees, but i had relatives connected out of New Iberia that had McIlhenny cousins.
We were ‘blessed’ with Kerr quart jars of the inner makings; that is, the scraping off the inside of the wooden kegs where the tabasco peppers, vinegar and salt (you know their production is in a salt mine right there on Avery Island) percolated until ‘ripe&ready’ to be bottled.
When you opened the lid, the rubber had been liquefied off the seal AND a little blue smoke would lift outta the bottle! kid u knott! some goooood stuff, had more kick than the regular Tabasco.
You know, i knew they ‘make it’, the McIlhenny’s when watching in 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark and saw a bottle on the table in the Nepal bar scene.
You have Italian blood, too? I made asparagus for TG and have never detected the scent in the loo. Maybe cilantro disgust and asparagus-urine-oblivion go together?
don’t think i have much Italian, but asparagus does ‘light up’ my loo! whew!
well, you where no help.
It’s a diuretic.
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