[Sca-cooks] Spices was licorice

[Jessica Tiffin]

At 11:23 PM 2/23/04 -0600, Ranvaig wrote:
>And Saffron IS native to Europe.  There are pictures of it on the
>walls of Knossos.

Andrew Dalby's "Dangerous Tastes" suggests that its origin is probably in 
Asia Minor, although it was known very early on in Europe - he cites a 
mention in the Iliad and in wall-paintings in Akrotiri in the Aegean 
islands before the eruption of Santorini.  He also suggests it was know in 
Iran in "very ancient times", and reached Kashmir anywhere between the 5th 
century BC and the 3rd century AD.  Spain, of course, is now the producer 
of the highest-quality saffron.

Weird detail -  he mentions a Cretan wall-painting which suggests monkeys 
might have been trained to pick the crocuses!

JdH

Jehanne de Huguenin (Jessica Tiffin) * Drachenwald Kingdom Chronicler
Shire of Adamastor, Cape Town, South Africa
melisant at iafrica.com ***  http://users.iafrica.com/m/me/melisant
We are modern people with egalitarian instincts deliberately creating a 
society that combines feel-good communalism with hierarchical, exclusionary 
elitism. It should not be surprising that it leads to the occasional 
cognitive dissonance. (Tangwystl verch Morgan Glasvryn, Silverwing's Laws 90).