SC - at the market

[Christina van Tets]

Hello the list!

I have several questions related to food currently available in the market:

Does anyone know how to cure olives?  A period recipe would be excellent, 
but if not a mundane one would do.  I can't resist them any longer, and I 
know they taste disgusting when they're not cured properly.

Some time back I asked if anyone knew what I could make with sumac, other 
than za'atar.  Just repeating the question, as I got no answer at that 
stage...

Incidentally, we were in the north over Pesach (went to see the Nimrod 
fortress in the Golan - skite skite, swank swank - which by the way has a 
very pretty public drinking fountain built in the 1200s by a protege - no, 
not that sort of protege, at least I don't think so - of the Sultan Baybars 
and renovated in the 1300s and bearing a long and decorative inscription 
explaining that this is a Drinking Fountain...) and talked to various people 
about pittot and za'atar.  They were _horrified_ that we used za'atar by 
itself - all 'normal' people use at least oil as well, preferably labani (a 
yoghurt cheese, as I understood) as well.

My third and final (for the present) question is Can anyone tell me the 
Linnaean name (or preferably the standard Indian one) for grains of 
paradise?  Enquiring shoppers need to know...

Cairistiona
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