Licorice
The licorice plant cultivated for the flavor in its root and used not only in confectionery but in medicines and laxatives, is Glycyrrhiza glabra, a perennial with blue pea blossoms grown mainly in the Near East, but also in Yorkshire in the north of England. Glycyrrhiza lepidota is a wild licorice, native to North America.
Sticks of it are chewed in countries where it grows to do toothbrush duty. But it's more commonly turned into a flat black flexible candy coin, called, Yorkshire, Pontefract Cakes.
The Dutch, who eat the stuff by the ton, prefer their licorice candy salty. Imports from Holland of single salt and double salt licorice are available at Bonnie's Cafe, 4224 Fessenden St NW, 202 237 8989, which also makes excellent coffee and selss an interesting range of loose teas.
To buy any of 160 sorts of licorice from over 10 different countries, log on to www.licoriceinternational.com.
The popular British licorice candy, Licorice Allsorts, are sometimes stocked by The British Connection.
The oil extracted from the root, though pungent in flavor, is seeing growing use among inventive chefs. Heston Blumenthal, England's answer to Ferran Adria, chef owner of The Fat Duck at Bray, just outside London, has worked with licorice, slow-poaching salmon in a licorice-flavored oil bath at very low temperatures. But licorice has an even more obvious affinity for pork - witness the use of star anise, a close neighbor of licorice, in Chinese pork recipes, and fennel root that Italian cuisine marries with pork. The flavoring ingredient in the Tuscan salami finocchiono is fennel seed.
Tony Conte uses it in his Maine Peekytoe Crab Salad with Pickled Peaches and Thai Basil.