SC - Silphium
Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net
Sun Feb 6 18:48:22 PST 2000
> Don't confuse laser with silphium, as an
> earlier comment did. Silphium was the resin of a related plant which became
> extinct due to overharvesting in the wild in the period of the early Roman
> Empire (so, anyhow, if you have an Apician recipe calling for silphium,
> your best substitute is the closely related asafetida).
>
> Francesco Sirene
Yes, silphium is now extinct. It grew only in a rather small area of the
southern Mediterranean. But the demand for it was enormous. It was harvested
to extinction sometime in the 3rd or 4th C AD. But it was not primarily used
as a food ingredient. It was the Classical World's best birth control herb.
For more on this, see "Ever Since Eve..., Birth Control in the Ancient
World". March/April 1994 Archaeology.
- --
Lord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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