Subject species harvests a viscous amber secretion produced when small flying insects swallow flower liquid, partially digest it, and deposit the result into wooden boxes maintained by a human nearby. The human then scrapes out the insect output, strains it, and sells it at what the Pan-Galactic Bureau of Plausible Foods rates as 4.7 confidence units below "ought to be legal."
They eat it on bread. Voluntarily.
More puzzling: they grade this insect product by darkness of color, believing the browner jars contain superior invisible particles. A subject named Alice Klein reports purchasing her preferred batch from a neighbor "a few blocks away" and rates it tastier than the supermarket variant at approximately 2.3 smugness points per spoonful.
Historical records indicate one ruler, Mithridates VI Eupator, weaponized a hallucinogenic variant by leaving combs in the path of Roman troops, who consumed the bait at a rate of 81.2% and were then slaughtered while dizzy. The subjects retell this story fondly. They continue to eat the goo. They feed it to their sore throats. They are warned not to feed it to infants, lest the infants become paralyzed, which is also, per the same article, the mechanism by which adults voluntarily smooth their foreheads.
Based on the original article "Honey has been used as medicine for centuries – does it really work?".
