Do you like licorice?
I haven't thought about licorice for years and then recently I saw a TV programme about it that reminded me how much my grandfather adored it - and how much I hated the flavour of it myself. There are some foodstuffs that if anyone asked me where they came from, I would have to think hard before I replied. Licorice is one of them. Did I even know it grew on trees? (Well, in bushes). I'm not sure that I did. Yet the history of licorice growing in Pontefract, a town near where I grew up in Yorkshire, is fascinating. The precise date when licorice arrived in Britain is unrecorded. It could have been brought over by the Romans, as it grew well in Europe, or it may have been brought back from the Crusades. In medieval times it was a plant well known for its medicinal qualities (although in the programme I was watching we were told that it makes your teeth fall out and causes high blood pressure! My grandfather suffered from high blood pressure for years. Now I know why.) The first ...