Consider these five fantastic food stories you may have missed while your toes and/or head were buried in the sand for the past 12 weeks. From food technology to food-boats-are-the-new-food-truck, it was a steamy summer for culinary news.

First, The Tree of 40 Fruits is a mindbender for everyone who believes that human tinkering with food may represent a horseman of the apocalypse. An artist professor in New York used chip grafting, a low-tech process, to fuse 40 different kinds of fruit trees together to create a single tree that bears 40 types of stone fruits, including cherries, peaches, and apricots. The fruits are heirloom varieties that were in danger of being lost. The tree became a national sensation,