Flame Berry

Flame Berries are a biological cousin of the O-Berry and native to Club Penguin. They are often confused for O-Berries due to their similar appearance, but unlike O-Berries, Flame Berries are spicy. Due to their flavor, Flame Berries are a major ingredient in Hot Sauce, a hugely popular topping in many Antarctic dishes, particularly pizza.

Description
Flame Berries are round and donut-shaped, just like O-Berries. However, Flame Berries are colored a deep red-orange, have rough skin, and are noticeably smaller, being about three-quarters of an inch in size. Unlike O-Berries, Flame Berries don't squirt juice if squeezed, and they smell sweet, while O-Berries smell sour and rotten.

The most obvious difference between O-Berries and Flame Berries is their taste. While O-Berries are sweet and tangy, Flame Berries have a strikingly spicy flavor and a dull, bittersweet aftertaste. The spiciness lingers for a few hours and can be very painful, which is why most penguins steer clear of eating Flame Berries. Gary once conducted a study on the cause for the berry's spiciness. He found out that the leaves and stem of the Fire Bush are even hotter than the berries, and that their effects can last for weeks. Gary believes this is a defense mechanism by the plant to prevent animals from eating its parts, and that the chemicals that make the leaves and stem spicy are carried over into the berries.

Cuisine
However, Club Penguin's residents have figured out a way to turn Flame Berries' painful taste into something marketable -- Hot Sauce. Boiling Flame Berries in water causes them to leak out the juices inside. The Flame Berry juice is diluted, then mixed with other ingredients to create Hot Sauce. Hot Sauce is less spicy than Flame Berries, and the taste can be easily washed away with water or dairy products, which makes it a popular alternative over raw Flame Berry sauce. Club Penguin has the original recipe, and it exports millions of bottles every month. Concerns about the environment have led berry pickers to store Fire Bush seeds in an underground vault, in case the Fire Bush population ever needs repopulating.

The other major culinary use for Flame Berries is as a snack. Fried and salted Flame Berries have risen in popularity ever since the Pizza Parlor in Club Penguin began selling them, and now they are eaten all over Antarctica. They can be easily made at home -- fry a Flame Berry in fish oil until it turns red-brown and sprinkle it with salt. The snack is slightly bittersweet and salty, with mild spiciness. Fried Flame Berries are often eaten alongside fried O-Berries, due to their similarity.

How to tell between O-Berries and Flame Berries
This is a commonly-recited lecture by Club Penguin tour guides. As well as they explain the process, there's always a noob in the group that does it wrong and suffers the consequences. It happens.

You've found a Torus Bush with ripe O-Berries; great! Or have you? A mistake made by many tourists is confusing the Torus Bush for the closely related Fire Bush, on which Flame Berries grow. Flame Berries make look similar to O-Berries in shape, but they have an extremely spicy taste. We use them to make Hot Sauce -- you can find that at the Pizza Parlor. Here's a guide for determining which berry is which.


 * 1) Take out a ruler and measure the sizes of the berries on the bush. If most of them are around one inch in diameter, then you're probably looking at a Torus Bush. If the berries are smaller, around a half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter, then you're probably looking at a Fire Bush. Of course, some Flame Berries are giants, and some O-Berries are midgets. If that's the case, go on to the next test.
 * 2) Look closely at the color of the berries. O-Berries have a bright, yellow-orange color. Flame Berries have a deep, red-orange color. This is usually the easiest way to determine the berry's type.
 * 3) Take a whiff of the berry's skin. Make sure not to puncture it, or the juice will leak out and change the scent. O-Berry skin smells horrible, a bit like sour, rotten eggs. Flame Berry skin smells sweet and inviting. Don't get this mixed up.
 * 4) Finally, feel the texture of the berry's skin. O-Berries have a slightly bumpy surface, and Flame Berries have a rough, crinkly surface.
 * 5) If you're still not sure what type of berry bush you've found, leave it alone. It's better to be safe than sorry, so try to find another bush that gives definite results. (Though, if you like taking risks and don't mind a bit of spice, go ahead and chow down!)

Trivia

 * Mistaking an O-Berry for a Flame Berry is a common error made by hikers or tourists visiting Club Penguin. Tour guides often give lectures on how to tell the difference between the two berries.
 * This, amongst many other errors, is one of Rookie's fails.
 * Grinding roasted Flame Berries into powder and making puffle food out of it is not recommended. Puffles are extremely sensitive to spicy food and will spit the food out.
 * On the other hand, the properties in Flame Berries work like magic on sick Arctic Hares, domestic or wild, even though the berries don't grow in their native region - the Arctic Kingdom. However, binge-eating them can be poisonous; subsequently, the vets in Club Penguin limit the consumption levels to strictly two per day, until they get better.