[Sca-cooks] regulations on sales of spices?

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Maggie MacDonald:
>I was at the farmers market in downtown Chula Vista today, and found a
>merchant who sold fresh spices in bulk. She had Grains of paradise, she had
>nigella, she had black and green cardamom, corticated and whole.
>
>One of the items the Calafian cooks guild needs for the November Coronation
>feast is sichuan pepper (long flower pepper?), I forget the exact chinese
>name for it.  She told me she was not allowed to sell it, by law.
>
>Once she mentioned that, I realized that the only merchant I had seen on
>the internet selling it was one out of Canada.
>
>Is there something about this spice, or other spices, that would cause
>regulations against them being sold in America?

Szechuan peppercorn, fagara, and sansho are all more common names in
the U.S. than flower pepper. Long flower pepper is a term I've never
heard before, which begs the question, are you absolutely sure you
aren't supposed to be looking for long pepper, which is another
critter entirely?

Finding it on the Web shouldn't be too difficult (it may be something
as silly as using a different spelling of Sichuan; see previous), and
I expect it would be a fairly common item in Asian groceries in
California.

I can't imagine any reason it would be regulated in the U.S., if it
wasn't done years ago.

Adamantius