Honey

[Pan]

Famous throughout the Arabic-speaking world for its alleged virtues as a medicine and an aphrodisiac, the honey in question sells for upward of 150 euros ($180) a kilo. It is even mentioned in the Koran.

Read more about the honey of Socotra here:

"Nectar of the gods, the world's most coveted honey"

Have any of you ever had any?

[docsconz]

Unfotunately, I haven't, although I very much hope they succeed in preserving the ecosystem and enhancing the production of this product.

This sounds like it would be an ideal story for the Slow Food Movement.

[Kent Wang]

My cousin in Christchurch, New Zealand just sent me a jar of Airborne brand Rata and a jar of The Honey Hive brand Rata/Wild Fuschia blend. Both are delicious, the fuschia blend being quite floral. I have so much honey now, and I don't know what to use them in!

[fifi]

As a stocking stuffer gift last Christmas, my son gave me a little jar of honey from Pitcairn Island of all places. It was actually shipped to him from there. We got a kick out of the postage. The jar had a picture of a passion flower on the label but I have no idea if that is the actual source. (It was really good, too.)

There is a local "wildflower" honey that comes from Alvin, Texas. It is sold in our local Kroger stores of all places. It is wonderfully floral.

My all time favorite is a very dark honey that my dad used to collect at a certain season when he kept bees along White Oak Bayou when I was a kid. I have no idea the plant origin of it but it was really good. Perhaps my memory is skewed but I have yet to find its equal.

[Venusia]

I like the mild, subtle flavours of acacia honey and rhododendron honey that my MIL, who is a family friend of the Mario Bianco azienda apistica in Torino, gets for us.

[loiosh]

During particularly dry years, local honey gatherers here in Australia will go up into the mountains to collect honey from bees which pollinate the gnarled, twisted snow gums and other trees on the mountainsides. They're quite strongly flavoured.

[jayt90]

Sam, and Abra,

How do the bees manage to get nectar from pine?

[andiesenji]

My all-time favorite honey is Tupelo honey

which has a distinctive flavor.

I also like the Bell heather honey from Scotland and the Tasmanian Leatherwood honey.

However, most of the honey I use is produced locally from bees that roam in the desert. The greatest amount is produced early in the year when the desert wildflowers are blooming and the flavor changes from year to year as there are some wet years when certain plants bloom but are dormant in very dry years.

[Swisskaese]

We have all different types of honey:

Avocado

Wildflower

Carob

Citrus

eucalyptus

Retama (Jerusalem thorn)

za'atar (hyssop)

I may have forgotten a few.

[BarbaraY]

My grandfather kept several hives and the honey was very dark, almost molasses colored and it has long been what I look for in honey but don't find.

A few months ago my daughter got me a small jar of locally made honey that amazed me. It's wild flower honey from the Red Hills, very light, and you can taste the delicate flavor of wildflowers. It is the most amazing flavor and the first time that I can remember really enjoying a light honey.

[LunaSea]

Good ol' Florida black mangrove honey is one of my favorites! Key lime honey too!

[Ktepi]

I'll add to the praise for Airborne -- the only honey of theirs I've had is the Honeydew, but it's amazing (for those who aren't familiar with it, Honeydew is a class of honey -- like the honeys labeled forest honey, and I think pine honeys -- produced by bees who collect the nectar of other insects instead of taking the nectar directly from the plant). Airborne's comes from beech forests, if I remember right, and it has a deep, fruity, complex flavor that's not like anything else I've had.

[anzu]

Sam, and Abra,

How do the bees manage to get nectar from pine?

←

One description of pine honey and the relationship with bees here.

[Daniel Rogov]

And then there is Hymettus honey. A honey so rich, so delicious, so fragrant that many Greeks justifiably continue to think of this as the honey of the gods.

[Tae.Lee]

kangaroo island [off the coast of Adelaide, South Australia] has the only pure strain of ligurian bees left in the world, brought in sometime in the 19thC, and kept under quarantine conditions [no bee products from the mainland are allowed]..

this means you can get raw [unprocessed, untreated] honey..

the best is from small local organic producers, the taste is so deep and luscious that it just keeps going and going in the mouth..

http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/pages/agriculture...D=376&tempID=11

this isn't the producer i'm thinking of [supplies are even hard to get here, dependent on whether there's enough to ship to the the mainland]:

http://www.goodfoodkangarooisland.com/midn...honey/index.asp

http://www.zingermans.com/Product.pasp?Cat...ProductID=P-WSG

[jayt90]

Sam, and Abra,

How do the bees manage to get nectar from pine?

←

One description of pine honey and the relationship with bees here.

←

That's an interesting article, but I'm not convinced that bees can gather enough honeydew from aphids to make a quantity worth gathering. If you have ever watched the honeyflow from a field of buckwheat, or clover, then it is easy to see that the amount of honey will be much greater than the yield from the backs of aphids. I have not seen pine honey offered in pine rich North America.

[jmcgrath]

Purple Loosestrife honey is quite interesting, slightly medicinal, but very complex with a flavor hard to describe. A friend put a few hives in my back yard, along the riverbank which is sadly infested with loosestrife. I've been trying to find a parasite that munches on loosestrife, but in the mean time the flowers are being put to use. It's a pity that the very beautiful shrub is so invasive.

[star792]

we love the white honey. they sell it at my husbands tea store. we always have some on hand. supposedly harvested once a yr in hawaii off some certain plants from the bees. i can ask him for the details. i am sure i am leaving something out or mixing it up. anyway. its like frosting in its consistancy. the tupelo honey we have is black sage and its really interesting. there is a strawberry honey in a bear container we like. i don't know who makes it. will have to check.

[foodie52]

We just got back from Australia : we had a wonderful visit to Kangaroo Island and got to sample the honey from the only pure strain of Ligurian bees left in the world.

The honey is delicious. Very, very flavorful and distinctive. I brought some back and am rationing it! BTW, the eucalyptus DOES affect the flavor. It's amazing.

[Susan G]

Buckwheat honey. It looks more like molasses than honey, but the flavor is so earthy and complex!

[Kent Wang]

So how do you guys enjoy your honey? Do you bake with it, eat it straight, drizzle it on toast or put it in your tea?

[star792]

i like it in tea and my husband likes to slather the white honey all over his toast. it is too sweet for me to eat like that.

[Swisskaese]

I put it in my tea

Spoon it over sheeps yogurt and walnuts

bake with it

cook with it

drizzle it on scones

[Ktepi]

Most of my honey consumption is on biscuits or fresh-baked bread, on the rare occasions I make bread. The more "honey-tasting" honeys (Tupelo etc, as opposed to the forest honeys), I sometimes use for lemonade iced tea. It's a good topping for vanilla ice cream, too.

[Jaymes]

Peanut butter & honey sandwiches.

Also, use it in my ham glaze, along with white pepper, wine, cloves and orange juice.