Oddities... (Was RE: [Sca-cooks] Good News from Drakey

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

Sounds like melegueta pepper (a.k.a. grains of paradise) to me. The seeds
are brown, but I have no idea what the pod looks like. And it does have
kind of a hot taste to it, although not quite as hot as regular black
pepper.

Margaret

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002 kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:

> I am re-reading "The Journeyer" by Gary Jennings, which is the story of Marco
> Polo told first-hand.  In it, he mentions a cure for hemmoroids that is an
> onion, boiled soft, then bound in place with a cloth.  He then describes a
> situation in which he gets to see this cure, but I won't go there.  The
> section I'm in right now they are in Kithai(China), and he keeps describing
> malegheta pepper, a red, hot pepper that is used in sauces and even in the
> plaster in one inn to deter pests.  I have found Jenning's research to be
> pretty good in the past (especially for historical fiction), but I keep
> running up against this and wondering.  Any ideas?
> Christianna
>