[Sca-cooks] Seeking Costus...

[Terry Decker]

It's not.  Costmary is Chrysanthemum balsamita, while costus is believed to 
be Saussurea lappa.  The name costmary does derive from the Latin costus, 
but it is not the same plant and where the root is used with costus, the 
foliage is used with costmary.

Bear

> On Jan 21, 2008, at 3:12 AM, Lilinah wrote:
>
>> I'd love to get some of the root variously called Costus and Costum
>> in most of the books i've read, and also called putchuk and kusht in
>> "Flavours of Byzantium" by Andrew Dalby.
>>
>
> You might try and see if this is the same thing as alecost or
> costmary, often used as a bittering agent by brewers when making
> unhopped ales.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=TNxiHDi51n8C&pg=PA368&lpg=PA368&dq=costmary+costus+costum&source=web&ots=OOXoQO5tNz&sig=nNMmKfzxacRq1irMB0CqTGNjMuk
>
> Adamantius