Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"A year ago I boarded a train in Istanbul to investigate one scientist's claim of rediscovering Silphion, a legendary herb thought to have gone extinct 2,000 years ago.

"It still grows in the heart of Turkey-and it's delicious."

-- Taras Grescoe (lostsupper), 2022-09-23, on Twitter

"Unlike classical medical texts, which tend to be vague on details, the cookbooks that survive from antiquity are often explicit about quantities and techniques. [...]

"For Sally Grainger, a researcher who co-edited the authoritative English translation of Apicius, 'finding the original silphion, and experiencing ancient recipes afresh with it, is a kind of Holy Grail.'

[...]

"'It's intense and delightful,' said Grainger. 'When you smell it, your saliva flows.'

[...]

"'There are only 600 individual plants we know of in the whole world,' [Mahmut Miski] pointed out. Three hundred of them grow in the wild. An equal number are now being grown from seed in the botanical gardens, though it will take several years before any of them are mature enough to produce fruiting bodies. 'You'd have to grow a thousand times as many plants to produce a commercial supply.'"

-- Taras Grescoe (lostsupper), "This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it?", National Geographic, 2022-09-23

"Not to boast, but I do believe that I was the first person from west of the Bosphorus Straits to have tasted Silphion in 2,000 or so years when I chewed on the (pleasantly bitter) resin from the root-ball in Oct. 2021.

"OK, kind of boasting..."

-- Taras Grescoe (lostsupper), 2022-09-23, on Twitter