Today's Topic: Poisons

     I find myself using research of the past for a variety of different things. I like natural medicines and learning about my genealogy. Today I am working on a book that I began a while ago. I am approximately 12000 words in or 22 pages. It's a book about the origins of man. I'll give a brief clip at the end if anyone is interested. In any case I have chosen in a very early time period (2500 BCE) to kill someone by means of poison.
     After decided this character's fate I realized I have no idea what sort of poison they'd have used back in the day. Would it leave any signs? What are the symptoms? How fast acting is it? And so my quests for ancient poisons begins!
     Where does any search start now a days? Wikipedia. Though some of the things written on the website are not credible there is actually a vast amount of useful knowledge collected on wikipedia that it could take days to search for otherwise. This search led to me someone that would have been close (or as close as I may have been able to find) to the time period and location of the book. Pliny the Elder.
       Pliny the Elder was recognized as one of the hardest workers in his time. He spent nearly every minute of his waking life working and collecting information on all known natural phenomenon from geography to plants to diseases. It's said he recorded over 7000 poisons and antidotes. At a time when there was no printers or computers that is an extremely impressive feat. Looking through his books though I'm afraid they were both dry and hard to scan. I believe that I shall go back and give them a good look when I am less pressed for time. Any one who is interested can find them all here.
      As I said earlier though I am pressed for time due to the fact that I am looking to finish part of the story for an event. Scanning through his complete work was not an option. So my next step pinterest. It seems to be a magical website that delivers a slew of information. Type in Ancient Poison and one of the first hits is hemlock water. It is said that Socrates died by drinking a hemlock potion, but what was in that potion? Could hemlock be mixed with wine as I am poisoning the character through wine? A could search for the terms "Can hemlock poison wine" revealed nothing except that hemlock apparently smells like wine, but swing the words around "wine poison hemlock." and I found this website which references the author up above about the death of Socrates. In the article she tells me that Socrates died from a mixture of hemlock juice, laudanum, and wine likely killed Socrates. This I think is the perfect poison combination for my book!
     If you want another fun list of ancient poisons listverse has a pretty fun one.

And as promised....

      Once the young one was out of sight the Pharaoh began to tell his wife of his misgivings. "I did not want to take another wife."

      "I know, but it is expected of you. She will not be a queen. I hope it is enough. Our daughter can never be your heir. You must have many more children. We have not been blessed since she was born. I have no son yet to offer you." The child's mother was a beautiful, Babylonian woman. Adam thought she must have been born a princess. She had an air of grace and understanding that only royalty held. When she walked through the palace halls it was as if she was gliding over the stones. Yet as glamorous as she appeared she wore little to denote her station. It appeared that her hand maidens had to force her each day to put on appropriate make up and attire. She was lovely inside and out..

      Adam watched as Mentuhotep gently cupped her cheek with his hand. "But how can I ever be with another when my heart and body aches for you." He leaned in close to her. It looked as though his body surrounded her. Adam could see their aura glowed as one. The Pharaoh was a man who was truly in love. Adam chose to leave them for the moment. He was not looking to invade their privacy. Plus whatever God was planning would not happen until the Pharaoh chose to take Sarai as his wife, in the biblical sense.

      Instead Adam wafted over to the little princess' room. There was a large golden table that had water and breakfast set across it. "What a beautiful room." Adam heard a familiar voice next to him. His eyes swept towards the sound. Sarai entering the princess' chamber. Right now, she could not see Adam. No one could.

      "Thank you." Her soft little, voice was happy.

      "Sarai." The Queen walked in. "I am so happy you are going to be with us. Can I offer you some wine?"

      "Please allow me to get the wine for you." It was not like Sarai to be eager to serve. Something was not right. Adam had been forced to watch them since they came to live in Egypt. Sarai would have done anything to be waited on… Anything. "Your kindness towards me has humbled me. I would not feel right having you serve me." The Queen smiled openly.

      "I hope we can be good friends. I cannot wait until you have your first child. I will be here to help every step of the way if you need. And I'm sure Naterifari would love to spend time with you as well."

       Sarai brought over two glasses of wine and one glass of water. "I'm sure I will be very fond of her." All three raised their glasses.

      Sarai took a very gentle sip as did the princess. The Queen took a larger one. Perhaps under the stress of the situation the wine would calm her nerves.

      "Where did you come from?" The princess smiled at Sarai.

      "I come from Ur of the Chaldean's." Sarai pretended to take another sip as the Queen moved to get another glass. Adam watched Sarai's eyes close. Something was very wrong. He turned toward the queen who swooned and fell to the ground. Sarai soon followed. Adam rushed to the queen's side. This had to be Sarai's doing. Kneeling down he looked at her. Fast acting poison? The Princess was screaming behind Adam. He leaned to the queen's mouth to listen for breath. There was nothing. He could no longer hear her heart beat. She was gone.

      He stood up slowly and walked over to Sarai. She had passed out, but her heart was still beating. She must have made sure to drink only enough to knock her out. He should kill her. She's defenseless now. The crying Princess was shaking the queen desperate for her to wake up. The world slowed down around him and time itself ceased to exist. He walked over to the bottle of wine and took it. He could see roots through the container... many roots. Those roots belonged to a deadly plant. With a high enough dosage can kill in the span of a conversation. He turned back to the others.

      The King was there holding his daughters as the physician's tried to revive the women. There was nothing that could be done for the Queen now and Adam knew he could not stay. Eve would be here soon to collect her soul. If he saw Eve, something terrible would happen to her. She would be permanently taken from this world. At least he could take the wine to protect the others. As he fled he couldn't help but think about the irony of the situation. The people being hurt most by the righteous god were the moral "heathens." God backed Sarai who would poison a kind, charming mother. He should have killed her.

      Adam knew he had lost his chance. He could feel his wife's presence behind him. She was there and now he could no longer turn back.

Chicken New Orleans

    Everyone who knows me knows that food is one of my favorite topics. More specifically healthy foods and food allergies, because my as my friends have told me, I can't eat anything and they will draw me a map to the nearest bridge. They are very supportive. There is a terrible disconnect in this day and age between what people think they are eating and what they are actually eating.
   My own father didn't realize that Aunt Jemima's pancake mix contained milk. They're literally labelled, "Buttermilk" pancakes. Did he think that was for show? He explained to me no you just add water. Again, another sigh. The water re-activates the evaporated milk to give you buttermilk or at the very least milk pancakes. It does other things too of course, but nothing else that affects any of the big 8.
     I can go on and on about the subject of allergies and will do so in another post. This post is going to be short since it's past midnight and I'm quite tired from the long hours I've been putting in at work this week. I decided to try my hand at one of my mother's favorite dishes. Chicken Fricassee. I promptly went to work measuring ingredients only to discover I'd forgotten to get half of them.        
    Quickly I turned my vision to another path. What better than chicken and gravy? My chicken thighs were cooking, she told me later I had not cooked them right anyway, I cooked them first to make sure they were cooked through. I was supposed to cook them in the broth till they fell apart. Oh well, I added the chicken broth once I was sure my thighs were cooked through. *Note to self, look for thighs without bones.*

    I quickly added 1/4 cup of butter, something around 2 1/3 broth, 1/3 cup of gluten free flour, spinach, onions, 1/3 cup of heavy cream, and a splash of white wine. I also threw in Italian Spice (just whatever was in the bottle oregano, thyme, ect), Cayenne, Pepper, tons of Garlic, and Adobo. What I came up with was a dish less like my mother used to eat, and more like a dish I loved as a child. It was called Chicken New Orleans and the Outback Steakhouse stopped making it years ago. So, success? It was a good dinner, and next time I'll make sure I have everything to make a real dish from the past.

Man with No Country

     I feel inspired when I look through my family tree. I have only managed to trace back one block of relatives past great-great grandparents, however, looking through that list elates me and keeps me going on my journey. However, I have come to face a very personal problem along the way. The more I learn about the places my ancestors came from the more I feel like a man without a country.
     Growing up in the US is both a blessing and a curse. It is truly the great equalizer. Three generations after coming here and it no longer matters if your family were peasants or noblemen... French or English. My family in recent times consists of my mother's parents (Irish, Scottish, and French) and my father's parents (Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian) which eventually led to me. Looking at the countries I am sure you notice they are all very separate cultures. So for some the search for their ancestry helps them to pin down a cultural heritage, for me it has just expanded the already large tree of known places my family has come from.
     Looking through that one added section of family tree I can add, England, Spain, Egypt, different parts of the Middle East, Switzerland, Belgium, Norwegian, and the list continues to grow.I think it's all very cool to see the different places people merged from to make me, but it also makes me feel less and less connected to any culture. My family comes from a merging of people across the globe which is probably why we don't do anything that displays a heritage. We're American in the broadest sense of the word, I think being part of the new American Culture (which I find to be hysterical, because America itself doesn't have much of a "Culture"...) means distancing yourself from everything your family once knew or did in order to fit in. I realize they could not keep the exact same lifestyle an ocean away, but when America began to become a melting pot and people from all different nations began to arrive two things happened.

      At first people lived only with people from their respective countries. We had a section for Italians, Russians, Irish men, etc. Slowly but surely things began to change. I wasn't alive for this, so I'm not sure when the change took place, but I can guess it was the second or third generation that did it. If you'd have asked my great-great grandfather he'd tell you. He told my mother that ancestry did not matter when his family came to this country. Everyone interbred with everyone. I'm not quoting, because I don't remember his exact words, but they were to that effect. So from the beginning of time you had folks from many different backgrounds combining into one family unit out of love? Necessity? Survival? That meant being respectful of the others backgrounds or sometimes, as in my parents case, just ignoring that you are both from different backgrounds and celebrate neither heritage.
     Any one else experiencing this same phenomenon? I know they elude to it in the ancestry.com commercial. Though the man in the commercial found he was mostly Irish and was happier with those traditions. I've found I'm just to much of everything and not enough of one thing. This feeling sometimes leads to feelings of being alone. I want a community to be a part of and in America that doesn't happen. I feel like all I might have is a cultural community, because I left the church due to a personal disagreement on their stance pertaining to certain subjects. So I lost that community. No one talks to neighbors anymore. I feel like my world has become smaller as people began to hide behind smart phones and we have more long distance relationships. A cultural community may have been all I had and I don't even have that in America? So what am I left with? Who is there to back me? Does anyone else have these feelings?