O-Berry

O-Berries, the fruit of the Torus Bush are donut-shaped berries with a rough, yellow-orange skin. O-Berries are excellent nutritional supplements and contain large amounts of Vitamins A and C. They are the basis of a puffle's diet.

Presentation and Taste
O-Berries are yellow-orange in color, with a single green leaf protruding from the stem. Most berries are about an inch (2.5 cm) wide and a little more than half an inch (1+ cm) deep, with the hole in the middle being about half an inch (1.25 cm) in width. O-Berries are noted for being highly pressurized from the inside, and if ruptured, can spray a jet of juice up to a foot long. Since the juice of the O-Berry is an eye irritant, it is best to put on goggles when pressing O-Berries.

O-Berries are noted for their sweet, tangy taste (much like lemonade mixed with pineapple and mango juice) and are used as flavoring in Antarctic cooking from the USA to Freezeland. O-Berries, dried and crushed into powder, are used to make puffle food.

Anatomy
The Torus Bush, the plant that grows O-Berries, is found in the Antarctic wilderness, in cold, dry climates that receive a less-than-average amount of snow. Torus Bushes have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixating bacteria, which favors the biochemistry of the puffle. In fact, the only reason puffles eat more O-Berries than any other food is because they can pick up some nitrogen-fixating bacteria from the plants, allowing them to breathe and metabolize nitrogen gas. Torus Bushes take advantage of this, using puffles as pollen carriers to pollinate other bushes.

Use in Cuisine
O-Berries are often used in Trans-Antarctican cuisine, due to their natural sweet, tangy taste. There are multiple ways to cook O-Berries, but there are three main ways to prepare O-Berries in a dish.


 * Cooking O-Berries causes them to turn red-orange and become sour. Because of this, they are almost never eaten whole -- instead, the cooked berries are dried, grinded into powder, and sprinkled in tiny amounts as seasoning. Puffle food is made from grinded O-Berry extract, though with added sweeteners.


 * Frying O-Berries causes them to turn a deep red and become crunchy. However, they are not as sour as cooked O-Berries, so fried O-Berries are often eaten as snacks. Fried O-Berries are an alternative to normal puffle food.


 * Boiling O-Berries in sugar water and then letting the resulting liquid slowly cool down produces O-Berry syrup. The syrup is very sweet and slightly tangy, and is similar to real-life honey. O-Berry syrup is commonly used as a sweetener in dishes.


 * Boiling O-Berries without any sugar causes them to be light green and become sweet. Boiled O-Berries tend to look like light-green grapes. They are mostly used for desserts.

Trivia

 * Puffles eat them, and sometimes penguins and domestic Arctic Hares.
 * You can make Puffle food out of it, the most common being Puffle Os.
 * O-Berries, despite their excellent taste, smell terrible, which is why many penguins don't like them. Puffles, however, cannot smell O-Berries.
 * The Torus Bush is often confused with its biological cousin, the Fire Bush, which has similar fruit called Flame Berries, also round and donut-shaped. The only difference is that Flame Berries are colored a deep red-orange and are very spicy.
 * The Torus Bush is also often confused with the Snossberry Bush.