forgot to reproduce this for you for your convenience.
Topical Words
WORMWOOD
//
Alcohol awareness campaigners were horrified to learn earlier this month
that a British company plans to import and sell absinthe, the original
version made with wormwood. There can hardly be an alcoholic drink with
a worse reputation, even after nearly a century of prohibition in many
countries.
Two things made absinthe such a terror. It was about twice the strength
of any other spirit (more than two-thirds alcohol). And the wormwood in
it not only provided part of its green colour and a characteristic
bitter taste, but also thujone, an hallucinogen that is a relative of
the active ingredients in cannabis. No wonder it drove people mad and it
was banned in many countries early this century.
But the story of wormwood goes back much further than the absinthe
manufactory set up by Henri-Louis Pernod in 1797. As a name for a native
European species it originates in an old Germanic language, and it came
into Old English as weremod or wermod. Its derivation is far from
certain, but it may have been formed as a combination of wer, "man" (as
in werewolf) and mut, "courage" (from which we get our mood). So it
could be that its mood-altering properties were known from an early
time.
The name changed in medieval times, being thought by folk etymology to
be a combination of worm and wood (the plant is rather a woody shrub),
because it had been known since the time of the ancient Greeks to be an
effective worming agent. Its other benefits were lauded by John Pechey
in 1694: "It strengthens the Stomach and Liver, excites Appetite, opens
Obstructions, and cures Diseases that are occasion'd by them; as, the
Jaundice, Dropsie, and the like". That may sound like a snake-oil
advertisement, but the plant was genuinely useful and was a regular part
of the European herb garden.
Pechey said it also keeps away clothes moths. It was known to have the
same effect on fleas, so much so as to be celebrated in verse:
Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strowne,
No flea for his life dare abide to be knowne.
We know of the plant also from the Bible and Shakespeare, often as gall
and wormwood, implying something acutely mortifying or vexing. The word
has long been employed figuratively for something bitter or unpleasant
to experience, reflecting its best known characteristic, its taste. It
was commonly used to flavour both ale and wine, a practice that went
back at least to Roman times, and in some rural areas it was used to
flavour and preserve ale for many years after hops had been introduced
to more prosperous places.
Today we actually have two names for drinks derived from the same word
in the English language, because the German name, which by then had
become Wermut, was taken into French and used as the name for another
drink that was at one time flavoured with wormwood, vermouth.
(The name absinthe is from the French word for the plant, derived from
its former Latin name, absinthium.)
***my note: Jean LaFitte and Absinthe House in New Orleans......his
great grandson in southern Mafia Kingdom.....Never could figure out why
my mother liked Jean LaFitte.........Saba*********
It seems the planned reintroduction of absinthe is only possible because
Britain never got around to formally banning it - by the time we were
thinking of doing so, it had already gone off the market. This time
round, perhaps the authorities will act more quickly.
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Page created 19 December 1998.
A. Saba
Dare To Call It Conspiracy
A. Saba
Dare To Call It Conspiracy
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