The mystery of the lost Roman herb (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The mystery of the lost Roman herb (2017)

bbc.com

79 pointsantondd26 comments

>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.

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.

What is the difference between huckleberry and European Blueberry? Do they taste different? From my limited googling it almost looks like the same berry.

Both are in the Vaccinium genus. European blueberries are Vaccinium myrtillus. Red huckleberries are Vaccinium parvifolium. Alaskan blueberries are Vaccinium ovalifolium. Then there's evergreen huckleberries which are Vaccinium ovatum. There's also blueleaf huckleberries which are Vaccinium deliciosum.

All of these species look fairly similar.

The one mentioned in the article is Vaccinium parvifolium.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_parvifolium

They have red berries that taste fairly different than most of the other species I listed. Most of the blue ones though taste fairly similar.

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.

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.

Yes, it's used down south (Bulgaria) as well. Its aroma is amazing.

Maggi fan here. If it's similar, it's good

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.

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.

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!

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.

>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?

I don't have a lot of experience with fragrances, so I'm not sure how to describe it. It's not at all flowery, it seems like it would work well for any gender. It reminds me of the smell I encounter when I open the spice cabinet.

Since asafoetida is mentioned as a cheap substitute, I am sceptical!

(Perhaps the substitute wasn't the root?)

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).

previous discussion:

2 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22229666

4 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197503

Our favourite YouTube culinary historian on the subject: https://youtu.be/D-QHd4_1geE

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.

Dill - same family - has also been traditionally used for birth control.

(2017)

Looks a lot like fennel.

Grows wild here in Cape Town.

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.

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.

Yes, it grows many places around the Mediterranean and on the west coast of North America as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com