[HN Gopher] The mystery of the lost Roman herb (2017)
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The mystery of the lost Roman herb (2017)
Author : antondd
Score : 75 points
Date : 2021-08-10 10:15 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| CRConrad wrote:
| Our favourite YouTube culinary historian on the subject:
| https://youtu.be/D-QHd4_1geE
| red_trumpet wrote:
| (2017)
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Very cool!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| previous discussion:
|
| _2 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22229666
|
| _4 years ago_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197503
| Aqwis wrote:
| Lovage isn't quite as obscure as the article makes it out to be.
| I didn't recognize the English name of the herb but I remember
| having seen the Norwegian name on restaurant menus and it doesn't
| even grow here outside of gardens. It seems to still be
| reasonably common in southern European food.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| For anyone who might be put off from reading the article:
| lovage is mentioned in the article but isn't the lost mystery
| herb from the title.
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| Sweden reporting in: I always use it when boiling a broth from
| the carcass after slaughtering a rooster. It gives an amazing
| taste and smell.
| tpm wrote:
| Maybe in some countries it is obscure and not easily available.
| Here (Central Europe) it is commonly used in broths and herbal
| teas.
|
| It is sometimes called Maggi-herb because the taste or aroma is
| perceived to be similar to the Maggi seasoning sauce.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Maggi fan here. If it's similar, it's good
| nek28 wrote:
| Yes, it's used down south (Bulgaria) as well. Its aroma is
| amazing.
| peter_retief wrote:
| Looks a lot like fennel.
|
| Grows wild here in Cape Town.
| b3morales wrote:
| Fennel is one of a fairly wide group that have those
| characteristic branching stems and umbels (flat-ish clusters of
| tiny flowers). Other possibly-familiar members: carrot,
| parsnip, hemlock, celery, parsley, and the asafoetida mentioned
| in the article. This is the Apiaceae family.
| peter_retief wrote:
| I was thinking of a wild variety of fennel that grows in Cape
| Town, Africa.
|
| Flowers make an amazing tea if used fresh and the leaves have
| a very strong liquorice smell.
|
| It is seasonal and we harvest it from the wild alongside the
| road.
| b3morales wrote:
| Yes, it grows many places around the Mediterranean and on
| the west coast of North America as well.
| crdrost wrote:
| This is one of those super nerdy quotes to put up, too:
|
| > _Laser... inter eximia naturae dona numeratum plurimis
| compositionibus inseritur... quas habeat utilitates admixtum
| aliis, inmensum est referre._
|
| > "The laser, among the most precious gifts of Nature, used in
| numerous medical applications: to describe all its uses in
| combination with other things, endless is the task."
|
| > -- Pliny the Elder, _Naturalis Historia_ XXII.il
|
| There is a slight problem in that a lot of the people who read it
| and accept the misdirection that we're talking about modern
| lasers, seem to not know who Pliny the Elder is or when he wrote,
| so they miss the joke. :(
|
| The [...] exclusions, I should say, are doing a lot of heavy
| lifting in creating the misdirection, with some creative
| translation mixed in ("medical applications" instead of
| "medicinal compositions" for example).
| grawprog wrote:
| >But there isn't a single commercial huckleberry farm on the
| continent.
|
| >After early colonial settlers failed to bring the berry to
| Europe, serious efforts to cultivate the plant began in 1906.
| More than a century later, the stubborn shrub still hasn't
| yielded to captivity. When they're grown from seed, they are
| mysteriously devoid of fruit.
|
| I always wondered why there was no commercially grown red
| huckleberries. It never really dawned on me they would be so
| difficult to farm.
|
| That being said, a few weeks ago we were out on a walk picking
| some huckleberries and my cousin pointed out that every single
| huckleberry shrub we came across wasn't actually growing out of
| the ground, every single one we found was growing out of a nurse
| log. Even the ones that looked like at first glance they were
| growing out of the ground were actually growing out of rotting
| wood. After he pointed this out, we tried to find just one
| growing out of soil. We couldn't, every single one was growing
| out of a dead tree or some other rotting wood.
| err4nt wrote:
| From what I've researched you _can_ plant them from seeds but
| it may take 15 years to mature. And not necessarily every plant
| that you plant will produce.
|
| So if you had a lot of land, and a lot of time (decades) you
| might be able to cultivate a huckleberry patch, but that's
| quite a commitment.
| Thlom wrote:
| What is the difference between huckleberry and European
| Blueberry? Do they taste different? From my limited googling it
| almost looks like the same berry.
| runj__ wrote:
| Last time this was discussed on HN someone brought up that
| there's a perfume that tries to replicate the smell of silphium:
|
| https://www.storaskuggan.com/products/silphium
|
| It smells great!
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| I can verify, I have a bottle of it sitting on my desk right
| this moment. I'm not a big fragrance person, but I wrote about
| silphium back in 2007, so when I found the product I was
| intrigued. It did not disappoint.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| > _I have a bottle of it sitting on my desk right this
| moment._
|
| What does it smell like? Is there anything that it reminds
| you of?
| shellac wrote:
| Since asafoetida is mentioned as a cheap substitute, I am
| sceptical!
|
| (Perhaps the substitute wasn't the root?)
| contingencies wrote:
| Dill - same family - has also been traditionally used for birth
| control.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| As somebody with a yard overrun by goutweed/ground elder I really
| hate the romans and their stupid invasive gardens. That stuff is
| unstoppable and showing up at a plant swap makes me feel like
| I've got an STI.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| (2017)
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