It soothed us before anaesthetics, sent our imaginations flying and tempted us with alluring flavours – and they are still pushing the frontiers of both medicine and food today. These are the plants that have entered our culture through food and medicine, drugs and love.įearing anything that looked like nightshade the first plants that were brought here from the New World were regarded with suspicion, yet quickly we adopted them, so much so that it is impossible to conceive of Italian food without tomatoes or Friday night fish and chips, yet they are aliens in a strange land. This is the group that contains mandrake, potatoes, chillies, aubergines, deadly nightshade and tomatoes. Its culinary properties enhance the ever intricate flavours of modern cuisine while its fatal attractions have been used by murderers. The screaming mandrakes in Harry Potter and the shamanistic dreams of tribal elders eating giant trumpet flowers testify to the magical powers of this group. They enchant us, poison us, make us feel sexy, give us hallucinations, heal us and feed us. It is hard to think of a more diverse and wonderful group of plants. Wicked Enchantments: a history of the Pendle Witches & their magictells the compelling story of James and Alizon Device, the teenage brother and sister at the centre of one of England’s most notorious witchcraft cases.
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