[Sca-cooks] Spices was licorice,

[vicki shaw]

Funny these should come up because I read a historical novel just a few
months ago that takes place after 1066 and around the time Rufus' hunting
[accident] in which a man is sold some seeds to grow saffron with the
promise it will be the harvest of the future, and then earlier today when I
tried to save face by referrencing my book on spices, I read that " A dozen
miles south southeast of Cambridge lies one of the truly idyllic towns in
Essex:  Saffron Walden........On the town's shield are three saffron
flowers, due - like its name - to the fact that saffron has been cultivated
there since the fourteenth Century."  This contradicts the story in the
novel I read, but it is still interesting.  The chapter on saffron goes on
to say that the crocuses were brought to England by a pilgrim returning from
the Holy Land who had stolen them in Tripolis....


Angharad ferch Iorwerth; MKA Vicki Shaw
Barony Beyond the Mountain
East Kingdom
vhsjvs at gis.net


It's not totally out of reason...I had a good friend give me saffron
crocus bulbs many years back. I pretty much destroyed them as I didn/t
take proper care of them. But folk do grow them this far north...and
this is far from the tropics (Maryland).

Kiri