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Questions and Answers - Part 3

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grant

13:18 / 28.02.06

What do you mean -- herbs grown in Britain, herbs indigenous to Britain, herbs used in British cooking, or what?

Spaniel

13:20 / 28.02.06

herbs indigenous to Britain

That'd be the one.

I can't seem to escape links to sites offering healing and suchlike.

Kit-Cat Club

13:38 / 28.02.06

I can't find a list either. I do think, however, that separating indigenous herbs from 'herbs grown in Britain' might be a bit tricky, and in many cases pointless, given the amount of plant introductions that have been naturalised over the centuries...

Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica includes quite a bit on herbs medicinal and culinary growing wild in Britain, and there's even a byblow of the main book devoted to herbs...

Spaniel

14:11 / 28.02.06

By that logic the word indigenous is pretty problematic full stop. Which I suppose is a fair enough.

Okay then, I suppose I'm looking for a list of the kinds of herbs that might've found their way on to the British dinner table during the 19th century.

Kit-Cat Club

14:54 / 28.02.06

Mrs Beeton sez:

'SWEET HERBS.--Those most usually employed for purposes of
cooking, such as the flavouring of soups, sauces, forcemeats, &c., are thyme, sage, mint, marjoram, savory, and basil. Other sweet herbs are cultivated for purposes of medicine and perfumery: they are most grateful both to the organs of taste and smelling; and to the aroma derived from them is due, in a great measure, the sweet and exhilarating fragrance of our "flowery meads." In town, sweet herbs have to be procured at the greengrocers' or herbalists', whilst, in the country, the garden should furnish all that are wanted, the cook taking great care to have some dried in the autumn for her use throughout the winter months.'

nameinuse

15:18 / 28.02.06

There really aren't a lot of native herbs that we use in this country, most of them are mediterainian and came with the romans or later. The only ones that immediately spring to mind are wild garlic (you can find it by it's smell, has thin-ish, flat, bright green leaves, grows in late spring) and elderflower (though I'm not 100% sure the Elder is a native plant).

If you're looking to find some rarer stuff to grow, I find Jekkas Herb Farm a good place to start. There might be more info if you dig about there too.

grant

15:47 / 28.02.06

By the 19th century, though, I think you'll find most of the same things you'd find today -- black pepper, thyme, rosemary, mint, lavender, oregano, all those things. (Just a guess.)

I'm pretty sure you can find 19th century recipes online in various locations (this link should be close to your heart, Boboss), which should plenty of hints as to the contents of Victorian pantries.

grant

15:52 / 28.02.06

An American recipe, but I can't see why it wouldn't be used on both sides of the Atlantic:

ENGLISH KETCHUP: Peel ten cloves of garlic, bruise them, and put them into a quart of white wine vinegar; take a quart of white Port, put it on the fire, and when it boils, put in twelve or fourteen anchovies, washed and cut in pieces; let them simmer in the wine till they are dissolved when cold, put them to the vinegar; then take half a pint of white wine, and put into it some mace, some ginger sliced, a few cloves, a spoonful of whole pepper bruised; let them boil a little; when almost cold, slice in a whole nutmeg, and some lemon-peel, with two or three spoonfuls of horse-radish; add it to the rest, stop it close, and stir it once or twice a day. Keep it close stopped up. Cook's Own Book p. 105.

Spaniel

17:24 / 28.02.06

Thank you very much, guys. And, Grant, that recipe sure looks like something to try.

Wild garlic's an interesting one. I used to eat it when walking my mother's dog through the fields around my home village. It filled a whole but was deceptively strong.
I once tried putting it in a salad but found it dominated far too much.

Name, have you got any good wild garlic recipes? (I'm sure I could dig some up, but I'd like to eat something that's been recommended)

Shrug

22:25 / 28.02.06

In astrology, what is meant by your rising sign/ascendant? And how do I find out mine?
Please and Thank You.

grant

02:00 / 01.03.06

I *believe* that if you were born exactly at sunrise, your sun sign (the one you look up in the newspaper) would be the same as your rising sign, that being the sign that is rising at the moment of your birth. It's helpful if you realize that this is all based on the movement of a band of constellations across the sky. The one you normally think of as your sign is the one that the sun happens to be in for the month (more or less) around your birthday. The one the moon is in is also astrologically significant. Well, the places of all of them are, really, but the moon sign's another one that crops up a lot.

You should find yours if you google "calculator" and "zodiac" or "astrology" or, even better, "horoscope."

nameinuse

11:48 / 01.03.06

Boboss - I tend to use it shredded, cooked (or at least warmed through) in sauces and stews (not that its season suits stews terribly well) and things, kind of like I would chives. Gentle cooking softens the flavour a bit. I've not got any specific recipies that make it the star of the show, though. I would have thought vary sparing use raw in salad would be the way forward - maybe finely chopped in a dressing?

After a bit more research, chives might be native to Britain too. As other people have said, there's hardly anything we have now that wasn't available in the 19th century, that I can think of.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:27 / 01.03.06

Where does the idea that vampires hate garlic come from?

I ask because it's fairly well-known that if dogs eat garlic (small amounts- too much is apparently toxic) it makes their blood unpalatable to fleas (worked a treat with the dear departed Biscuits- come summer I guess I'll find out if it works as well with Sheena!), and wondered if this whole "bloodsuckers don't like garlic" thing came from that.

Apart from anything else, dogs don't freak out at crosses.

Bubblegum Death

01:10 / 02.03.06

Where does the expression "taking the piss" come from?

Jack Denfeld

01:20 / 02.03.06

From the wiki
A Christian myth says that after Satan left the Garden of Eden, garlic arose in his left footprint, and onion in the right.[15] Even in Europe, though, many cultures have turned to garlic as a protective force or white magic, maybe because of its reputation as a powerful preventative medicine.[16] Central European superstitions considered garlic a powerful ward against devils, werewolves, and vampires.[17] To ward off vampires, garlic could be worn on one's person, hung in windows, or rubbed on chimneys and keyholes.[18]

Jub

09:34 / 02.03.06

it stems from the belief that to wake with an erection is a sign that the bladder is full, & to be “proud” is an obvious pun (raised above a level, projecting from normal, something to take satisfaction from &c). this expression also evolved into being a generalisation for any older men who married younger girls, i.e., they were falsely “proud” & this developed so that “taking the piss” was to take from somebody their feeling of self-importance or their belief that they were special, i.e., to “deflate” somebody.

Whisky Priestess

09:45 / 02.03.06

Can anyone find, or tell me what happened to, a thread I started long long ago called "What Ate Your Life?" (about the stuff, like TV, gaming, staring out the window, Barbelith, that gets in the way of the stuff that you should be doing, like work, reading Proust, tidying your room, and Barbelith).

I have searched for it a few times because I want to revive it (I'm interested in what is currently eating people's lives) but can't find it anywhere. Has it dropped off the board? It was really interesting (to me anyway) - can anyone reassure me that it hasn't been deleted?

unheimlich manoeuvre

12:41 / 02.03.06

Whisky Priestess, what ate YOUR life?
Barbelith search function.

grant

13:52 / 02.03.06

To elaborate on Denfeld's answer, the "protective magic" thing is the thing -- garlic is used medicinally as a purifier. You'll actually find most purifying agents are effective against vampires in different cultures. For example, in Greece, you'd stick a lemon-slice in a vampire's mouth, and mustard seeds are used against them in some parts of Eastern Europe. Running water, also, which is going to be pure compared to the standing kind.

Important to this conception: vampires today are kind of used as a cipher for hunger, while originally, they stood in for corruption or decadence (especially in the sense of decay).

I'm not sure if salt, vinegar or hard alcohol were ever used, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't find them at all. (well, maybe the fermentation would throw off the last two)

Whisky Priestess

13:56 / 02.03.06

thanks inchoate. That's a useful thing to know.

Axolotl

22:41 / 02.03.06

I'm dredging up some ancient memories that seem to think that far eastern vampires of the floating head variety may have used vinegar in some way as a preservative for their entrails. IIRC salt is often used as a defense against the undead by forcing them to eat it. Presumably throwing salt grains would also work against the OCD type of vampire who would be forced to count the grains before pursuing you, though that is more of a logical development I've just thought of than anything based on real sources.
I add the proviso that, as ever, I may be talking absolute shite based on nothing more than my booze addled memories.

ibis the being

15:41 / 03.03.06

Exactly what sort of problem is indicated by not being able to use buttons on certain websites?

Ariadne

15:43 / 03.03.06

What browser are you using? Maybe the site isn't designed well and can't cope with your browser. Or have you turned off pop ups?

iconoplast

15:43 / 03.03.06

Browser incompatibility, I think. I hit that a lot using Safari, and have to go open up Internet Explorer & go to the page again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it turns out the page was written so as not to work at all for Macs.

ibis the being

18:21 / 03.03.06

I'm using Windows XP & IE (don't shoot me). But I just downloaded Firefox to try it from there and got the same result. They are sure it's not a problem on their end... basically what happened was it's a message board that changed to a completely new format and I can't use it at all. No one else seems to be having that problem besides me so far, and I'm willing to bet most of the other members are using IE.

pointless & uncalled for

18:29 / 03.03.06

E-mail the webmaster and get the permissions set up that they are using, there is likely a discrepancy.

Tabitha Tickletooth

18:29 / 03.03.06

How bad is the odour of skunk (furry creature, to be clear)? I've googled this and found lots of descriptions of how to get rid of it, indicating it is very persistent and obviously unpleasant. What I want to know, and I'm guessing that those who have actually experienced it are probably best placed to answer, is what is it like?

Jack Fear

18:39 / 03.03.06

Imagine the unpleasant esters of garlic magnified by ten. Then imagine it being so strong that you can clearly smell the roadkilled corpse of a skunk from about two blocks away. If a skunk discharges within a hundred feet of your house, you will have to close your windows.

Even at that range, the effect is extremely unpleasant. I imagine if you got hit directly—though I never have been, thank God—you'd have watering eyes at least, and possibly nausea.

I'm a country boy, and for years I kept cats, so believe me—I know from skunk.

Jack Fear

18:45 / 03.03.06

That said: the odor of an untargeted discharge does largely dissipate with fifteen minutes or so, and is almost totally gone within an hour. A domestic animal who has been sprayed, however, will retain the unpleasant odor for a while—it gets into the fur. If the animal is not washed, it may stink for a week or so, depending on conditions. The odor of the animal will range from a mild wet-dog ambience to a somebody-chopping-onions-under-your-nose reek, depending on how how big the dog or cat is and how directly it was struck by the spray. Luckily, skunks have pretty bad eyesight—although even with that handicap they're better marksmen than I would be in a "shooting things out of my ass" competition.

Tabitha Tickletooth

18:46 / 03.03.06

Thanks Jack - thing is, I like the smell of garlic. Are you saying it smells *like* garlic or that it has a magnified form of the potentency of garlic? I've seen the smell described as oily, which again I don't really understand. Interestingly, many of the sites I have seen refer to removing the smell from pets, so I see how the cat thing might be a source of horror.

Somewhat gallingly, I am also finding that this type of question is typically asked on other websites by 'Mary, aged 11, student'. That's progress for me, in my pursuit of knowledge...

pointless & uncalled for

18:49 / 03.03.06

I've pickied up the odour of roadkill skunk from 10 kilometers downwind in through the AC of a car.

Incidentally, if you do the hitting skunk with a car thing then wash the car immediately with a pressure wash, including the underside) and then accept that for at least a couple of days you'll have to park well away from your house.

pointless & uncalled for

18:54 / 03.03.06

Skunks do smell a bit like garlic, if the garlic has been projectile vomited though a cloud of burning unrefined oil laced with excrement.

Tabitha Tickletooth

18:56 / 03.03.06

Okay, I'm getting there. Time and resources permitting, I will attempt to construct an experiment based on a combination of Jack and Seldom Killer's descriptions and report back. If able.

ibis the being

18:59 / 03.03.06

I had never thought of it that way but I can see the garlic reference... maybe like the smell on your fingers after you've been mincing garlic. It's not quite musky, because there is a sharpness to it and also some sort of sweetness, though not as sweet as, say, a rotting mouse corpse. Have you ever seen/smelled skunk cabbage?

I grew up in a rural area and actually I don't mind the smell of skunk all that much, it's a little unpleasant but I have to admit there's something I like about it too.

Dead Megatron

19:18 / 03.03.06

Have you ever seen/smelled skunk cabbage?

I'm not even sure I've ever been less than 300 miles from a skunk in my life.

Anyway, can someone explain what exactly "nonsequitur" stands for? It's a new word(s) for me.

And, since we're in the subject of dead language pseudo-intelectual expression, when exactly one should use the expression "vis-a-vis"???

These are not current in my first language, but that's no excuse: I'm just stupid.

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