Food: Salt taken from 'human tears' is no crying matter

No crying matter: the tears are fictional

A London store is flogging a new range of gourmet salts, extracted from human tears. The salts – available in tear-based flavours including Anger, Sorrow, Laughter, Chopping Onions or Sneezing – are being sold at the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies store in east London, part of the Ministry of Stories creative writing centre for children aged eight to 18, whose founders include the author Nick Hornby.

The salt is real, and costs £7 per jar. The tears, as you may have guessed, are fictional. Such is the pitch that foodie culture has reached, however, that the concept is almost plausible.