[Sca-cooks] Pellitory

[Suey]

/ /pyrethrum/./ This includes all the single-flowered chrysanthemums, 
which contain a natural insecticide nontoxic to mammals. Naturally, it 
is symbolic of protection. The flower is dried and the powder is 
sprinkled about the house too kill cockroaches, spiders, flies, ants and 
bedbugs. Further, it can kill pests living on the skin of animals and 
men. These plants are bitter. In the Middle Ages they were used as 
purgatives. In England the leaves were chewed to "clean the head." Also 
they were used equally in food and in perfume. In Al Andalus it was 
thought that all food items had a purpose and virtues. Pyrethrum was to 
make one happy. The fresh flower may be added to decorate dishes. Like 
cress, the leaves were an ingredient for salads and other dishes. The 
leaves and flowers were added to soups for flavoring. The taste is 
similar to the tansy. In 13^th C Al-Andalus pellitory was an ingredient 
for honey water. In southern Europe the root of it was used to make a 
paste applied locally as an irritant. In England it was an ingredient 
for Sauce Vert (Green Sauce). There pellitory was included in a 
medicinal bath to cure all ills especially coughing in foggy London.
See Charles Perry's footnote 221 in his translation of the 13th Century 
Al-Andalus MSS and Cindy Renfrow's _Glossary Of Medieval & Renaissance 
Culinary Terms _http://www.thousandeggs.com/glossary.html
I wonder if it kills slugs. One year at a cousin's I was appointed to 
water and spray the roses with a poison for them while cousin and wife 
were away. I did not read the instructions on the jar of the poison and 
did not dilute it as it ordered. I found myself drowning the rose bushes 
at 3 am that morning with water and massaging the leaves in an effort to 
save the prickly bushes. Beside it was my male cousin's wife who 'owned' 
the bushes. The next year when I went back tried to convince her to 
plant parsley around the rose bushes but she only put one plant there 
not the whole width of the garden so of course the slugs were back in 
full force and she's screaming at me: "you see it didn't work!"
Suey