Fruit of the Red-Flowering Currant

Day 295: Here comes that question again: "Are they edible?" (What is it with this compulsion most humans have to put things in their mouths?) In this case, I can answer "yes," although I do so with reservation. The fruit of the Red-flowering Currant is edible, but to my way of thinking, not particularly desirable. For one thing, the taste is rather insipid, but first you have to get past the sensation of dustiness, as if you'd picked them alongside a dry gravel road and hadn't washed them before popping a handful into your mouth. And then there's the fact that the pale blue skin of the berry is dotted with tiny, sparse black hairs which add to the impression of having licked a piece of dirty, coarse cloth or a fragment of your cat's sisal scratching post. If you want to call that "edible," go right ahead, but I'll leave them for the birds, thank you very much.