Licorice in Middle East

The licorice plant (Glycyrrhiza glabra) is a blue-flowering pea with violet blossoms and spiky leaves. The plant grows to a height of 3–4 feet (90–120 cm). It prefers sandy soil with free drainage. Only after 3 years of growth are the roots thick enough to be harvested.

It has been used for medicinal purposes for millennia. Historically, the dried rhizome and root of this plant were employed medicinally by the Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Indian, and Roman civilizations as an expectorant and carminative.

It was said that Emperor Shennong classified more than 300 different medicinal plants, and one of the most important plants he classified was licorice. Shennong himself believed licorice could be used as an antidote to toxins, to reduce aches and pains, and to cure other ailments.

The earliest evidence of the use of licorice comes from the ancient tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. Licorice root was amongst the many treasures found in the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb from 1350 BC.

References to licorice have also been made on Assyrian tablets dating back to the second or third millennia BC.

The early Egyptians and Assyrians are known to have cultivated the ‘sweet root’ that was later imported to China, where it has been used for centuries under the name ‘Gan Cao’. The Ancient Egyptians believed licorice endowed the recently deceased with the ability to keep evil spirits at bay.

In ancient Scythia, which today is a region that encompasses Iran and parts of eastern Europe, licorice was cultivated, and by the third century BC, it was exported to Greece.

In Medical School of Salerno (VIII–IX century AD) the work Regimen sanitatis carefully examined licorice and its pharmacological properties acquiring the knowledge derived from outstanding Arabic medical scientists like Mohammed Ibn Zakaria Abu Bekr Alrazi (“Rhazes”, 850–925 AD.) and Ibn Sina (“Avicenna”, 980–1037 AD.).

Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the famous physician and philosopher, said in the Canone of Ibn Sina, that: “the infused licorice purifies the voice and the trachea, and is useful in disorders and diets.” He used this plant in treating his patients nine centuries ago.

The Cluniac monks are thought to have ‘discovered’ licorice when accompanying the Crusaders in the Middle East, where it was already a popular drink and a suitable alternative to the banned substance, alcohol. It is thought that they then grew licorice in their herb garden at Pontefract.
Licorice in Middle East

The first chocolate manufacturing plant in United States

In 1730, chocolate manufacturing becomes a mass production when a mechanical cocoa grinding process is introduced.

Chocolate production in the United States grew faster than anywhere else in the world. The first wholly machine-made chocolate was produced in Barcelona, Spain in 1780.

It was during pre-revolutionary New England – 1765 the first chocolate factory was established in America. It was first manufactured in 1765 by Irish-born chocolatier John Hannon and physician James Baker. They opened the first chocolate factory at Milton Lower Mills, near Dorchester, Massachusetts.

John Hanan brought the cocoa beans from the West Indies, thinking they might be used in medicine. In 1780 James Baker produced chocolate made soluble by a reduced cocoa butter content, a product called baker’s chocolate.

James Baker’s descendent Walter Baker hired an employee named Samuel German, who developed a sweet chocolate; which was added to the Baker’s line under Germans name.

In the 1900s, Milton S. Hershey worked zealously at preparing recipe that would compete with the Swiss until he finally came out with a formula which mixed the right combination of sugar and cocoa.

This was amazingly popular with the public that he began to mass produce and distribute chocolate candy very successfully.
The first chocolate manufacturing plant in United States

History of ginger

Ginger is a member of a plant family that includes cardamom and turmeric. It has been medicinally for more than 2500 years in China and India for conditions such as headache, nausea, rheumatism and colds. The Latin term Zingiber was derived from the ancient Tamil words, Ingiver, meaning ginger rhizome.

Arab traders, in search of spices, took the term to Greece and Rome, and from there to the Western Europe.  The Greeks called it dzinggiris, their version of Persian dzungebir, from Sanskrit srngaveram.

The present-day name of ginger in most Western European countries is derived from this ancient term.

Ginger is found in ancient Chinese, India and Middle Eastern literature and has long been valued for its aromatic, culinary and medicinal properties. Indians and Chinese are believed to have produced ginger as a tonic root for over 5000 years to treat many ailments.

The Persian trade mission Darius sent to India in the 5th century BC brought back ginger. The Indians used it lavishly, but it had only a limited success in Greece and Rome.

Because ginger had to be imported from Asia, it remained a relatively expensive spice. As early as second century AD, ginger was one among the very few items on which duty was levied at the Alexandria port of entry, during the time of the Roman Empire.

During subsequent periods and in the Middle Ages, ginger was on the list of privileged goods in the European trade, and a duty was levied. Nevertheless it was still in great demand. As a result, Spanish explorers introduced ginger to the West Indies, Mexico and South America in an effort to increase its availability.
History of ginger 

History of Food Crops

History of Food Crops
The angiosperms provide most of our food crops. They first appeared in the early Mesozoic or late Paleozoic era about 200 – 250 million years ago, but fossil evidence of them is extremely limited until they began to dominate during the Cretaceous (136 – 190 million years ago). The angiosperms were the first plants to have double fertilization and the enclosure of seeds in fruit. Double fertilization provided zygotes with copious resource to help them get established and fruits attracted animals for dispersal, it was the appearance of the angiosperm that set the stage for the development our mammal ancestors.

A wide range of hypotheses implicating selection have been presented for a rapid emergence and diversification of the angiosperms. The most popular hypothesis is that the concomitant rise of pollinating insects led to powerful divergent selection as foragers and hosts developed complex relationship.

It was the angiosperms that ultimately provided us with most of our crops and their emergence predated the appearance of our species, Homo sapiens. In fact, most of our food families or their close relatives were in existence long before we began farming. The only completely new crop type to appear after the advent of agriculture was maize, Zea mays, which has an ear and tassel arrangement not found in its progenitors. In most cases, human beings did not influence the overall structure of crop species, only the size of their edible organs and their ease of harvest.

Human beings now consume a diverse array of plant structure, and at least 64 families of angiosperms and 180 genera are utilized as crops. This is a broad systematic group, but represents only a small fraction of the total number of angiosperm families (300) and genera (3000). The dicotyledons provide the highest number of crop plants; however, the bulk of the world is fed by a few monocotyledonous grains (maize, rice and wheat).
History of Food Crops