Missing Links: the Food Edition

Warty Pumpkin donut (CC Licensed)

Ugly fruit makes a comeback, solid advice on maximizing your liquor consumption, and more, in today's links.

• You know all the icky little things that you try to forget that you're eating? Here's what some of them are. Like that red spot that looks like blood in a raw egg -- turns out it's not an embryo, but we're still grossed out.
• Fans of all the malformed and misshapen fruits and vegetables of Europe have emerged victorious, and will no longer have to suffer the dullness of straight cucumbers, uniform carrots and unblemished potatoes.
• We don't know if those winter squash that look like they're covered in warts would have been sufficiently fetching to be sold in Europe, but in case anyone wondered what causes the ridges and grooves on pumpkin and their kin, a team of researchers think they have the answer.
• A team at a "flavor company" has determined that a bacteria in saliva creates flavor. Not that these researchers have a vested interest here or anything.
• Research into flavor-enhancing bacteria is great and all, but someone found a use for science in the study of food that will probably be put to immediate use: figuring out just how much liquor a Jell-o shot can hold.