[Sca-cooks] Orange Flower Water

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 8, 2007, at 9:22 PM, Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote:

>> I was just thinking: maybe people with distilling technology might
>> concentrate more on getting their perfume essences and such from
>> plants with aromatic blossoms which don't produce an edible fruit,
>> versus one which does... this might help explain the comparative
>> dearth of orange-flower-water recipes compared to those with rose  
>> water.
>
> Well, roses produce an edible fruit :) and we know they distilled  
> those
> by the cartload (literally).

I was wondering who would come out with that... ;-).

I do realize rose hips are edible. Nonetheless, if you look at  
quantities consumed, it really doesn't make a significant change to  
my point. It still _might_ help explain the phenomenon when you  
consider the possibility that people knew that every blossom plucked  
is one that doesn't produce fruit -- but apparently did it more with  
roses, overall, than they did with oranges.

But yes, sheer volume of blossoms required might be a factor as well,  
as well as the fact that we can't assume that orange blossoms yield  
the same amount of essential oil, attar, whatever you call it, as  
roses, per hundredweight.

Adamantius





"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have to say, let them eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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