Thread by @lostsupper

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.
More in my @NatGeo feature:
nationalgeographic.com/history/articl…

All involved were able to keep this secret for a year while the Nat Geo team put together this amazing
package. Thanks to @kristinromey @_alicezoo @mallorybenedict Nirupa Rao

For space reasons, this was removed from the article:
"One of the only things silphion wasn’t used as, surprisingly, was a love potion. A close reading of Greek and Roman texts shows no evidence of it being prescribed as a contraceptive or aphrodisiac...

"and a single ambiguous reference to its possible use as an abortifacient."

I go into much more detail on my adventures in Turkey, and the history of the herb, in the Silphion chapter of my upcoming book The Lost Supper. More soon!

As I've mentioned, the current misconception re: love potion/abortifacient qualities come from John Riddle's Viagra-era book Eve's Herbs. The references cited simply don't stand up to examination.

I was honored to be Sally Grainger's sous-chef in #Istanbul. Here I am with Chef and Dr. Miski at the end of a long day of cooking from Apicius...

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...
Thanks again, Dr. Miski!

Silphium + Garum = transcendent. An intensity of flavour, and a synergy, that's hard to describe. We all felt a little intoxicated.

This is the Garum Sally Grainger brought to Istanbul. Made by a Portuguese team, and, to be honest, much better than the Flor de Garum from Cadiz.

Miski, Grainger and I were privileged to be able to test the taste of this plant; it was part of the confirmation process. There is not enough F. drudeana for humans to eat. We’ll need to propagate it for years. This is an opportunity for study, not another extinction event.

Some people have wondered about the flavor of Silphion. Very hard to describe! The resin is bitter, but the magic happens with retronasal olfaction, when the heady, slightly medicinal pine-forest-like odors really come into play.

I thought of it as a flavor-enhancer, like liquamen or Nuoc Mam, though not operating on the umami scale. Grainger agreed. It somehow kicked dishes from Apicius into the stratosphere—along with liquamen, it’s a missing secret ingredient that unlocks ancient cuisine.

That said, it’s going to take many more kitchen experiments to get it right. As it should be. #Rome wasn’t built in a day.

For now, the list of (putative) Lazarus taxa just got a little longer.