Native ingredients such as varieties of tomatoes, squashes, avocados, cocoa and vanilla augment the basic staples.

UNESCO: Culture

The worry for Groupon investors is that Google or some other giant squashes it like Microsoft squashed Netscape.

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Because their dominant culture of 99% defect-free operational excellence squashes any attempts at innovation just like a Sumo wrestler sitting on a small gymnast.

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Plump red pumpkins and squashes called kadhoos are pan-cooked with onions or transformed into halwa, a warm, melt-in-your-mouth dessert with the consistency of fudge.

NPR: Discovering Afghan Cuisine, a World Away

Backed up by some unlikely friends - in this case a centipede, earthworm and grasshopper - James squashes the aunts with the peach and floats away.

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"It's got great fruit, but it's not as heavy as a merlot, which squashes out some flavors, " says James Schmidt, owner of the Rattlesnake Club, one of Detroit's top eateries.

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America Online squashes Time Warner and Disney combined.

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But then, he says, management squashes the idea.

FORBES: The Sick Patients Glaxo, Pfizer, and Lilly Refuse To Help

At the Alwinton Border Shepherds' Show in Northumberland (October) anyone can nominate a new category for a small fee - so if you have a unique talent for carving dinosaurs out of butternut squashes or baking cakes that taste like burgers, next year that rosette could be yours.

BBC: The great British country show: A cultural eye opener