It's been a while since I covered a fruit spread, so let's rectify that today. My local Shop-Rite has really improved on its supplies of foreign and odd cheeses, meats, crackers, and such. This was one of them. The apricot spread was from the DeLallo brand, out of Jeannette, Pennsylvania.
When I looked at the label for this spread, I assumed it was from a company that was either Greece-based, or at least one that specialized in Greek cuisine. Since it read "Product of Greece." However, a little online checking indicated that something else was going on here. The motto listed on the official DeLallo company website is "Authentic Italian Food Since 1950." And their product list confirms this, consisting of Italian delicacies such as pasta, pizza, sauces, olives and antipasti, tomatoes, peppers, Italian desserts, pastries, olive oil, and charcuterie ingredients (cheeses, meats, etc.). It wasn't until scrolling through quite a bit that I finally saw a mentioning of them marketing non-Italian Mediterranean foods as well. So, it appears that I happened to buy one of the very few non-Italian products that DeLallo sells. And since the headquarters of DeLallo are in Pennsylvania, this presumably means that the apricots were grown in Greece, but probably fully processed into the spread back in the U.S. I know I just did a post about another Italian food (the dessert cheese from last week), but we're going to have a heavily Italian-related post topic for consecutive weeks. Anyway, at least this time I was actually able to find out a little about the founders of the business. In 1950 George DeLallo and his wife Madeline DeLallo started the George DeLallo Company, Inc., in the Pittsburgh suburb of Jeannette. They were striving to replicate the authentic Italian experience here in the States. (The website didn't say if George and/or Madeline had been born in Italy, but it appears likely that they both had Italian in heritage, at least.) The business thrived, as it is apparently a nationally recognized Italian and Mediterranean food company. In 2014 DeLallo acquired the Three Saints Bakery, which specializes in tea cookies. Currently the firm makes over 200 products.
DeLallo apricot spread: Its color was a yellowish-orange, and its odor was slightly sweet. There were some visible chunks of apricot in it as well. I had some plain, and some on some crackers and flatbreads. Both ways were good--the taste was sweet, and tangy. Solid overall. Not my favorite spread, jam, or jelly, but certainly decent. Fans of apricots will probably really enjoy this.
I also looked up apricots in general, and learned a few nuggets. There is some dispute over this, but the scientific consensus appears to be that this fruit originated in China. Currently apricots are grown on every continent in world, save for Antarctica. The top 5 producers of this fruit are, in order, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iran, Algeria, and Italy. As with their cousin the peach, the seed (commonly called the stone) of the apricot is highly dangerous if consumed raw. It contains amygdalin, which releases cyanide. But the strangest thing about apricots is a superstition about them held by the U.S. Army and Marines. This dates back to at least the Vietnam War, or possibly World War II. Allegedly, people started noticing that some armored vehicles, such as Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVTs), Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs), and especially tanks, tended to break down, or get attacked more if apricot rations were inside. The superstition grew, and now many tank operators won't allow this fruit inside, or even admit people who have eaten apricots in the previous 24 hours. Some refuse to even speak their name aloud, calling them "cots," or the "A-fruit," or the "forbidden fruit." This whole notion seems laughably absurd to me, since clearly the original basis for the belief was just a series of coincidences. Consuming a particular type of food or drink doesn't cause machinery to break down, or attract rockets and artillery. But, bizarre as it sounds, this is evidently a real superstition, and a surprising amount of people take this seriously. So bear this in mind the next time you're going on a journey in a M1 Abrams.
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