[Sca-cooks] blue food coloring

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> Can anyone suggest a period blue food coloring?  I looked into turnsole, but
> it comes from heliotrope which is poisonous.  Thanks!

I remember a great deal of hoo-ha about this, because the words 'turnsole'
and 'heliotrope' both mean 'turning toward the sun'. Our modern heliotrope
flowers are 17th century fads, and not the turnsole of the period
cookbooks.

Crozophora tinctoria is listed on the poisonous plants list, but,
disturbingly, so is Cucurbita pepo L. ?!

Whortleberries are supposed to make a good blue.

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"The art of losing isn't hard to master;/so many things seem filled with
the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour
badly spent." -- "One Art", Elizabeth Bishop