[Sca-cooks] Re: <SCA-Caid> Herb Help Part 2

[Susan Fox]

On 9/9/05 9:34 PM, "Lisa (Alais)" <asilnomrah at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I went to the company which makes the herbal tea blend that I am planning to
> use to make a metheglin and asked them if they could tell me what type of
> hibiscus they used. I explained to them what it was I was doing with it and
> why I wanted the information. A nice lady answered, quoted here:
>  
>>>> "We us hibiscus flowers imported from Europe. The botanical name is
>>>> Hibiscus Sabdariffa. This species is not considered mallow, and is
>>>> referred to as an herb the Old World with many folklore uses. Other
>>>> English names for it are: Guinea sorrel, Jamaica sorrel and roselle."
> In researching the particular plant on-line, I found mentions of it addressing
> the plant back to 1587 where a Flemish botantist wrote of it. Unfortunately,
> he was not quoted. The plant was used in Africa and India within period as a
> tea and other types of drink and food. It was also imported to South America
> and island colonies either at end of period or just after.
>  
> Has anyone heard of this plant being exported back to Europe and used "fin de
> period"? 



Oooh, good question, I will have to put this out on the SCA-Cooks list and
see what they know.  My gut feeling is probably not, but it¹s yummy stuff
anyway and would be worth the experiment.  You don¹t have to buy Jamaica
hibiscus through the mail, any grocery store that carries Mexican-style
foods has it.

SCA-Cooks list info, for whomever may be interested:
http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks

Selene Colfox
selene at earthlink.net