296293 Fri Feb 27 15:58:06 -0800 2004 15 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1631610 Yes, I am awaiting the inevitable jokes about moving this to the not about food board! So does anyone still eat this dubious food product? And how? I was just talking with someone about my parents who were into health food. For quite a few years in the 70's my mother substituted carob for chocolate in recipes. Once the studies started coming out that carob was no better than chocolate - you can imagine I was on the phone in a flash trumpeting it to my mother (who had sensibly given up carob many years before since it was disgusting). But as we were just chatting I wondered, does carob have any use as a food product beyond that of mediocre chocolate substitute? I don't know if I want to use it myself, but I am curious... Fri Feb 27 15:58:06 -0800 2004 0 ks 1 1631621 Horses love to eat carob. In rural Spain, that's the only thing they will do with carob pods. When I lived there, there were stories that things got so bad during the Spanish civil war that people actually ate carob pods and beans. I tried one once (we had a tree in our yard), and it made me sick to my stomach. Fri Feb 27 17:08:37 -0800 2004 1631610 0 Kirk 1 1631623 I don't recall... does carob contain caffeine, like chocolate does? I have a friend who's a former chocoholic, but she's become very sensitive to caffeine (it gives her migraines) so she's had to give up coffee, tea, chocolate... Fri Feb 27 17:14:03 -0800 2004 1631610 0 Colleen 1 1631633 I have seen carob syrup in Middle Eastern Grocers, not sure what its used for. Sometimes I actually like carob's flavor as itself, not as chocolate substitute. We would eat the inside of the pods as kids, what can I say!!, we ate Natal plums too and those things are nasty!! I use plain carob powder sometimes mixed in date banana nut shakes. It is unsweetened, and I don't add sugar, so for that purpose it is "better" for you than refined sugar, though I am sure its high carb!! I think it was all those funky carob health food products to "replace" chocolate that gives it a bad name. Fri Feb 27 19:05:31 -0800 2004 1631610 0 Ciaolette 1 1631638 I've bought some dog treats for my dog that were made from carob. They look like Oreo cookies. And taste like them. Yes, something made me taste them! lol. They were actually pretty good... Fri Feb 27 22:18:13 -0800 2004 1631610 0 deibu 1 1631642 When I was a kid, we would buy carob chips, like chocolate chips made from carob. I loved them, and I'd imagine I still would. Don't know if this qualifies as "eating carob" or not since it's yummified in the process. If you're willing to eat this confection, they taste good in muffins... Fri Feb 27 23:58:06 -0800 2004 1631610 0 Emme 1 1631647 I have very nostalgic memories of carob. I love the stuff. I was raised by hippies out in the middle of nowhere and so carob was some kind of overindulgent treat we were allowed once in a blue moon. Jeez mom used to make these cookies that were like 1/3 the sugar called for in the recipe and maybe 1/2 the required amount of chips if we were lucky--narsty biscuity things. Curious I still like carob probably. It was maybe the 6th grade before I ever tasted chocolate, so I never thought of it as a chocolate substitute. Were someone to present me with a big bag of carob chips right now, I'd probably make oatmeal cookies with them (real butter, don't skimp on the sugar, etc.). Factoid: Apparently carob seeds are very uniform in weight and were the initial weight measurement for gemstones (now the weight measurement is called 'carat'). Sat Feb 28 01:30:23 -0800 2004 1631610 0 cheyenne 1 1631669 My god your post comes at the most weirdly opportune moment. I write for a parenting magazine and I have been asked to write an editorial addressing some issues around nutrition obsession. My editorial begins with a reminiscence about carob. When my kids were small I was one of the hippy parents some of the other posters talk about - my kids ate no demon chocolate! They had nutritional yeast sprinkled on their popcorn! They never touched real sugar! It was healthy cooking at it's obsessive-compulsive worst. On the other hand...I did used to make these squares. They contained peanut butter, honey, all kinds of nuts and seeds and, yes, carob. In fact, in a fit of nostalgia, occasionally my kids will ask me to make it for them. It is the only way to make that horrible brown dust taste like anything other than horrible brown dust. Never thought of using it to make dog biscuits. Bet Simon would love it! Sat Feb 28 19:17:59 -0800 2004 1631610 0 Nyleve 2 1631674 My mom was that kind of mom too, at least until I was in high school.. Carob nut balls instead of cookies. Carob chip cookies. Carb balls wrapped in shiny tinfoil at Xmas so that I would think they were chocolate. I hate carob. Luckily, when I hit high school I started baking chocolate cakes and she started seeing the error of her ways. :-) Sat Feb 28 23:02:26 -0800 2004 1631669 0 Celeste 3 1631718 Oh yeah. I'm over it too. Big time. Talked about this very subject with some friends over the weekend and we had a good laugh. Carob was only one of the many (many) horrors we perpetrated on our defenseless kids. What about icing made out of powdered milk mixed with honey? Unleavened oat cakes that were fat free, unleavened and unsweetened. I could go on and on, but I have mercifully forgotten many of the snacks we used to serve. Mon Mar 01 14:05:46 -0800 2004 1631674 0 Nyleve 4 1631835 Oh my god, you all ARE my parents. Homemade peanut butter balls with carob and sesame seeds (or possibly some other less edible forgotten seed) and popcorn with yeast on it - these are the things we brought to the movie theater, while other kids got to enjoy jujubees (sp?) and popcorn with fake butter. Hey, maybe we weren't so bad off after all. Tue Mar 02 13:12:00 -0800 2004 1631718 0 piegirl 1 1631723 just did a little searching and discovered that carob is associated with a Jewish holiday i've never heard of -- Lag B'Omer. seems to be a celebration of a rabbi and his son who were miraculously fed for several years from the fruit of a carob tree. also looks like carob is related to locust trees, and the "locusts & honey" that John the Baptist ate might have been carob beans and honey. (yeah -- that sounds a little better to me than the bugs!) i'm going to post a link to this thread on the kosher board and see if anyone there has some info on traditional recipes for carob. wow, the things you can learn from an inquisitive chowhound's post and google! Mon Mar 01 14:28:59 -0800 2004 1631610 0 china 2 1631919 Oh - that's a whole nother story! On the Jewish holiday of Lag B'Omer, as part of the observance, you're supposed to partake of a number of different foods. It's a harvest festival, so you're celebrating grains and fruits and vegetables and all that stuff. One of the symbolic foods we always had was a carob pod. NOT ground carob powder...just the pod. For any tree-huggers out there, it looks a lot like a short and thick locust pod. The outer flesh of the pod is sort of sweet and a little sticky. The seeds are hard - you chew the pod, spit out the seeds. Once a year is plenty - trust me. Wed Mar 03 13:41:31 -0800 2004 1631723 0 Nyleve 3 1631920 Not Lag B'omer - Tu b'shevat is the holiday!!! Sorry - my mistake. Wed Mar 03 13:45:00 -0800 2004 1631919 0 Nyleve 1 1631860 well, the folks on the Kosher board had a couple of things to say, but basically, they don't seem like it any more than anybody else does. no amazing wonderful Jewish grandmother recipes, unfortunately. i was hoping i'd come back with some carob kugel or something that would miraculously taste spectacular.... but no luck. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/273103#1437083 Tue Mar 02 17:19:38 -0800 2004 1631610 0 china 1 1631886 Thanks everyone for the great insights and stories about carob - it's fun to know how others were served this and other "healthy" products back in the day. Our family fav. was "one-a-day banana bars" (I have no clue where that name or recipe came from, but they were pretty tasty considering....). And China - what a great idea for posting on the Kosher board! So interesting, but I agree it's too bad there wasn't an awesome recipe to discover. Anyway, just as a final aside, I was curious after Colleen's query about caffeine in carob. Apparently it doesn't have any caffeine, but does contain trace amounts of theobromine (theobromide?) a milder stimulant. But it still ain't worth eating, in my opinion. My share can go to the dogs and horses! Tue Mar 02 23:12:08 -0800 2004 1631610 0 ks