(for god's sake, do I really want to share this?)
Uuuuhhh... okay, the other night I was trying to do a quickie, half-arsed Borscht-test for the first time ever, and... it kinda kicked my arse?
Here's the goods--
Ukrainian Borscht recipe, as shared here:
https://piefed.social/post/1960602
And... instead of powdering the bay leaves, or just leaving them intact, in a major-genius move, I decided to break them up in to chunks, for the soup, to better-quickly disseminate. I kinda just do that in general, because I like fibre in my diet, if that makes sense.
Flash-forward 45min, and my half-arsed Borscht-test absolutely came out BEAUTIFULLY. Like- total beet-taste, lovely potato chunks, nice cabbage-part, excellent seasonings ("hot," as I always like it), no sugar added, and I was sooooo proud of myself.
Except that, my throat kept scratching for the next hour. I figured it was just one little bit that I needed to swallow down, and did all I could on that score. Then I figured that maybe I'd carelessly scratched-up my esophagus via whatever? Yeah well, whatever, that should heal fast, dude.
Except no-- it just didn't go away, like a PITA post-nasal drip at its worst. (raise your hand...)
Eh, so after an hour of stupid mind-games such as that, something still seemed wrong at a fundamental level, so I grabbed my best, completely overpowered torch*, went to the bathroom mirror, and took a good, hard look. So far so good, everything seemed intact! Then I reached down to manually open my throat, and VOILA, the immediate prolonged hacking response, and a HUGE chunk of bay leaf I coughed up. oO
Holy shit, ma dudes. Bonus points for that chunk being hilariously Brasil-shaped roughly, as I've been listening to a lot of Bossa Nova lately. (I swear)
In any case, PLEASE be careful with yon Bay Leaf chunks out there, my friends. It's really kind of a badass, in truth... oO
(note to myself: "good job, dude, now everyone across the Fediverse knows that you're a complete idiot" XD)
* lithium-battery flashlight in this case, rather blinding in most cases
It's fine to use powdered bay leaf in places where whole wouldn't work, such as in an herb rub for smoked meat. It's safe as long as you grind it finely. I use whole any time I can because grinding it is a pain.