SC - Re: Tatar herb

[Gaylin Walli]

Thomas asked:
>BTW: Did anyone answer the "tatar herb"-question? The indices of some
>herbals (Matthiolus, Tabernaemontanus) are of no help. To which language
>belongs "tatar (herb)"? To the English of the article or to the Italian
>or Polish of the sources?

And Cindy Renfrow responded:

>Not yet. I checked the indices to Gerard & Parkinson without success.  It
>may be buried in the text of Gerard, but Tatar is probably a place name
>reference, rather than the name of the herb.

I'm fairly convinced of it. Short of paging through Gerard entry by entry,
I've been trying to find Turkish herb origins for this ingredient. Searching
on Crimea, Tatar, and Turkey is tedious, but gives tantalizing results.

Ras had an interesting notion that it might be an herb unique to the region.
I'm less inclined to think so. Although the naming of a plant by a region would
suggest a unique plant, I offer up this suggestion: perhaps the reference
is to a *cheaper* source of an herb that was very expensive in other
areas of import. It may not have been unique to the area of cultivation,
but there may have been few other plants worth importing from that
area.

Francesco originally wrote:

>The spice is named as "Tatar herb", and its price is given as 2 zloty per
>stone, compared with raisins at 2 zloty per stone, pepper at 6 zloty per
>stone, and saffron at 5.5 zloty per pound. So the value would be
>significant, but not as high as Oriental spices. The wording in the article
>seems to imply that it was imported into Poland by Italian merchants, but
>this is not directly stated.

So, I'm confused. Why wouldn't it be Saffron? It was certainly cultivated
in the areas in question. In various forms as well. There may have been a
supperior/inferior source question concerning quality. But...I guess my
confusion lies in the wording of the original article. You list saffron as
part of the price comparison, but it doesn't seem to me to exclude an
alternate source of saffron.

Just an idea. Probably a crazy one that got stuck in my head. But, as
Cindy mentioned, short of paging through Gerard (or Parkinson or the Agnus
Castus or...or...), I guess we're all still looking. :)

Cheers,

jasmine
Iasmin de Cordoba
gwalli at infoengine.com

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