Tell Your Honey Story
I don't have a great honey story. But the sight and smell of honey used to make me gag and run when I was a child. Isn't that odd? As an adult, I developed a love for it, especially the dark and flavorful buckwheat honey. It's so good in tea, on oatmeal or buttered bread. Also, the fact that using locally-produced honey can help your body develop a resistance to local allergens is wonderful.
So, do you like or hate honey? Tell your story.
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28 Comments:
This is my kind of post. My other half's family are bee keepers! So, honey is very much loved and used a lot in my household. It's true that if you eat local honey, it can help you build up a resistance to allergens - truth be told that it's the bee pollen though, it MUST be local though. My favorite type is buckwheat honey, if you can find the right type of buckwheat honey it can be very black. It has a lovely flavor. Otherwise our family staple is cloverleaf honey - used in literally everything. Sweet, savory - you name it!
Lilartist at 1:22PM on 02/07/09
Having lived through the seventies, when honey was the only chic sweetener and it dripped stickily through everything (including absolutely leaden cookies and other baked goods), I had to get over the aversion to honey I acquired then. Now I like it fine on oatmeal and biscuits, but still don't want it in tea or (god forbid) coffee. I get the good local honey made from local bees, and I love the beeswax candles made by the same vendor. Maybe someday I'll get interested in middle eastern desserts, which are the only other things I really enjoy that have honey as a main ingredient.
Likeswords at 1:34PM on 02/07/09
I love honey and since a kid would have it on toast or English muffins along with butter and peanut butter. I put it in teas. When I was sick mom would make take hot water, lemon, honey and a little liquor and have me drink that. About twenty years ago there used to be this little cookie store that I used to love because instead of using suger to make the cookies they used honey, they were top notch. Now I use honey in many marinades and sauces as well.
pjracz10 at 1:40PM on 02/07/09
I had a teacher in 4th grade who grew up in a family of beekeepers. She brought in some orange honey on the comb and we had it on crackers. I will never forget how delicious it was!
The local honey around here can be pricey but well worth it. My favorites are sage and orange.
buffy at 1:51PM on 02/07/09
BTW, has anyone read "The Secret Life of Bees"? Now there's a great honey story!
buffy at 1:53PM on 02/07/09
Our local apiary shut down - huge loss to me and the whole community. We loved honey on biscuits and toast, and sometimes in hot tea. I used it whenever I could - trying to lessen allergy attacks. Plus, it tasted wonderful!
PerkyMac at 2:29PM on 02/07/09
I love honey. We happen to have a very good local honey and it comes in 4 seasonal varieties. And it is not pricy--very affordable. I like honey in tea. One of my fav things is making a honey and orange cheesecake. One weird thing I do is spread honey on untoasted bread and then walk away for about 1/2 hour. When I eat it the honey is kind of crystalized on the bread. Bizzay bazaar I know, but yummy just the same.
finsbigfan at 2:46PM on 02/07/09
I love love love honey! We have wonderful local places to get it, near the cherry and apple farms here, and the unfiltered orchard honey and the wildflower ones I have had are fantastic!
I go through more each year than I care to admit!
I use it in and on everything...sweet and savory...and fully admit to just sticking a spoon in the jar now and again.
sadiepix at 3:33PM on 02/07/09
Didn't care for it as a kid because I always equated honey with being sick. All that honey & lemon in tea for sore throats!! But now, "Guilty as charged!" Love honey..I love it with melted butter on biscuits and English muffins, mixed with greek yogurt and this wonderful honey curry chicken I make....sooo good..Just bought this really good honey w/ honey comb--- Gonna go grab me a spoonful!
Italiancupcake at 4:04PM on 02/07/09
I am also a big fan of Honey......like to use it instead of sugar
Markbb at 4:07PM on 02/07/09
For some reason, there are a lot of beekeepers in this area. Some are hobbyists and don't sell any of the product, some sell on a very small scale, and one guy makes and sells mead from the honey he gets from his bees.
So I have a pretty large selection of local honey to choose from. When I think of it, and when it's appropriate, I use it instead of sugar, but my biggest problem is how messy it is. I've bought it in squeeze bottles, but if you need more than a drizzle, it takes forever. If you buy it in a jar, the threads for the screwtop get gummed up and the next time you open it, it's glued on. And if it recrystalizes, for sure that squeeze bottle is useless. Yes, you can gently heat it, but that't the point where I'm thinking that there's got to be a better way to store and portion the stuff.
dbcurrie at 4:14PM on 02/07/09
I love honey, but it seems that I go long periods without eating any. So, I have the same problem as dbcurrie with it being crystalized when I finally get back to it.
I like it with a ocassional cup of Constant Comment tea, on biscuits, toast, waffles, pancakes, in fruit salad, on ice cream. I've had it in coffee, used it to sweeten ice tea (it infuses easier than sugar which is a stirring nightmare) and dipped chicken chunks in it.
I might have to have some with breakfast tomorrow, if its not crystalized.
whatseatingme at 5:23PM on 02/07/09
If it crystallizes, just warm it up in some hot water until it gets back to liquid. Works fine.
It's not like honey goes bad.
sadiepix at 6:09PM on 02/07/09
I actually love creamed honey, which doesn't crystallize as much. Like @whatseating me I go through periods of loving it and periods of total indifference. It is one of those things that has to be really, really good for me to get into it--the Teddy Bear squeeze-y kind just doesn't 'do it' for me.
HeartofGlass at 7:08PM on 02/07/09
I used to hate it. Then I read somewhere it was the perfect energy gel. Super readily available energy due to the perfect combination of fructose and glucose. So I started to force myself to eat it before track meets and it grew on me.
cycorider at 7:33PM on 02/07/09
I can't live without it. I use it in my tea everyday and cannot eat a biscuit with out it.
labcab at 8:36PM on 02/07/09
Honey. And peanut butter. On Carr's whole wheat crackers. And honey tea. Truth be told, though, I find it difficult to eat on its own, straight out of the jar.
firni at 12:19AM on 02/08/09
Oh yeah,
I love honey butter on warm bread, preferably a slighly sweet, brown bread.
whatseatingme at 1:04AM on 02/08/09
A few known friends call me the bee charmer. I really like the little buggers. I'll draw them in and let em land on my hand. I'd like to keep bees someday for real!
bisbee at 4:05AM on 02/08/09
I love honey... I remember when I was a kid our neighbors had a couple of hives in their field and they would bring us fresh honey comb... soooo good to chew on. I loved it.
Alm25 at 12:18PM on 02/08/09
@buffy: I haven't read it. Have you seen the movie? Is it true to the book?
@Likeswords: A lot of Greek desserts contain honey. I'd like to make loukomades some day. I'm half Greek and I've only learned to cook savory Greek dishes. No desserts. Well, no baked or fried desserts. I do prepare and enjoy eating watermelon with feta and cracked black pepper in the summer.
I'd like to travel to Greece to get some Mount Hymettus thyme honey. I've heard it's exceptional.
@anyone: Has anyone ever tried Hymettus honey?
Susquehanna at 12:33PM on 02/08/09
I haven't seen the movie. I'm a little afraid to, since movies rarely hold up to the books they're based on. With the exception of the Jason Bourne movies--the books are terrible, the movies are great.
In "The Secret Life of Bees" the beekeeping sisters used a spoonful of honey as the remedy for just about everything. Sounds pretty darn good to me. Also there was mention of a rare purple honey. Anyone heard of this?
buffy at 1:22PM on 02/08/09
My granddad kept bees, and every Christmas he would mail us a gallon jar of it with big pieces of comb in it (my favorite was to chew on the comb) and a ginormous home-cured country ham. Mama would make a big pile of biscuits and we'd eat the ham on the biscuits drizzled with that honey.
Now I'm hungry.
FoodieSearching at 2:09PM on 02/08/09
I don't have a honey story...but I do love honey! When I was little, my Mum would buy comb honey all the time, and it was an amazing treat.
brooke29 at 9:04PM on 02/08/09
I love honey!!!
When I was very little my mom and I rented a house on a farm - an older guy and his wife owned the farm, and they, my mom and her boyfriend, another couple, and the guy who lived in a converted school bus at the back of the orchard (yes, this was the 70s, why do you ask?) did all the farming. And, we kept bees. So every year we'd do this big harvest of the honey, and I remember melting the comb and having these monstrous 5 gallon jars full of honey. There were goats, too. and chickens. but they didn't eat the honey. Mom's boyfriend built me a playhouse for my 4th birthday and when I went back to visit when I was 10 they were using it to house some of the beehives in the winter. And that is my totally incoherant honey story.
AliceBlue at 9:32PM on 02/08/09
I watched a Good Eats on honey and decided I should buy every different kind I can find. I have a special love of acacia honey on a light flakey biscuit. But orange blossom honey on a grapefruit? That's awesome.
I actually use buckwheat honey IN PLACE of molasses in baking recipe. I think it works perfectly...
I've also tried fireweed, wildflower, and tupelo...very good stuff.
lawofmurphy at 10:37PM on 02/08/09
I'm not a big fan of eating honey off a spoon a la Nutella or Peanut Butter but I do love how it makes other foods taste.
I use it in my sesame chix sauce.
Stirred into tea it's downright anesthetic to the throat.
It's a huge help in making Peking Duck to brown the skin during the process.
I like to whir it up with natural peanut butter because while the natural stuff is better for you than supermarket stuff, it's downright boring to my palate. Makes a world of difference to have that sweetness incorporated into the pb without any other great sins :D.
Baklava wouldn't be baklava without it - come to think of it, half of Greek cooking would disappear.
chiff0nade at 6:52AM on 02/09/09
We have been beekeeping for the last year along with our neighbors. We had a swarm and had to re-queen and most of ours buzzed off, but we have our order in for more bees in the spring. The neighbor is lucky enough to have a nanny whose family raised bees, so she has had a lot of very good advice and help with hers. They harvested quite a bit and I must say, is excellent. Lord knows if the little guys have made it through this horrendous winter in MI. They have bales of straw surrounding their hives, but sometimes that just doesn't help. So my part of the "honey story" is a little sad :-(
Grandma's best cold/flu remedy - hot tea, brandy and honey. I swear it really works and if not, you get great sleep. zzzzzzz...
Ever tried honey drizzled in olive oil for dipping? It's amazing! We learned that little tip at Zingerman's at a honey tasting and I'm so grateful. We had the opportunity to taste about 10 different ones. Carob honey is somewhat creamy and feels like fudge on your tongue. Chestnut honey from Italy - to die for! If you don't like a more assertive honey, Tupelo might be for you. It's mild and lighter in color, as well, for those honey novices.
I also love to bake chicken thighs with a mixture of honey, soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic - really slowly in a low oven. It's great for a busy day. The chicken gets nice and brown and sticky and all you have to do is cook up a big pot of steaming rice - perfect.
When my honey bear honey crytalizes I just put in the micro on defrost for a few seconds until it's useable again (lid off). For the sugary crystals on the rim of the jar - just clean the jar and lid very well by wiping with very hot water and then wipe the grooves with some vegetable oil. Same premise as using the same measuring cup for your oil before the molasses - it slides right out - no sticky mess.
Also, since our foray into the world of beekeeping, we have done a lot of reading and research. Medical research has started producing honey "patches" of a sort, for healing wounds. So honey is not only good for our insides, but our outsides, as well.
frederika at 11:08AM on 02/09/09