HERB - Cardamom

[M Wolfe]

Greetings unto Lady Nostas'ia Stepanova;

I just dug through Pliny, Banckes, Turner, and Gerard,.  Pliny mentions it
several times in passing.
Book XII chap xxix
Resembling these substances both in name and in the shrub that produces it is
cardamomum, the seeds of which are oblong in shape.  It is gathered in Arabia,
in the same manner as amomum.  It has four varieties :  one very green and
oily, with sharp corners and awkward to crumble--this is the kind most highly
spoken of--the next sort a whitish red, the third shorter and of a colour
nearer black, while an inferior kind is mottled and easily friable, [sic.] and
has little scent--in the true kind the scent ought to be near to that of the
Medes.  The best price is 3 denarii a pound.

Pliny, The Elder:  Natural History: With an English Translation.  Vols., VI &
VII. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, MCMMLXX, (Trans: W. H.
S. Jones.)

If I understand Thomas Johnson's notation, Cardamom does not appear in the
first edition of Gerard's The Herbal.  However, Johnson added a chapter to the
2nd edition in which Cardamomum is included as one of the Graines [of
Paradise]
P. 1542
Gerard, John: The Herbal, or General History of Plants. The Complete 1633
Edition as revised and Enlarged by Thomas Johnson, Dover Publications Inc.,
New
York, 1975

I hope this will help!

Hugs
R


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