Liquorice allsorts and liquorice
A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
Apologies for the slightly blurry photo - I'm not very good at holding my phone steady. It was taken in Aldi where I finished up after my Eltham walk - and the first thing I see is this packet of liquorice allsorts. Well not the originals - a modern day copy. But I was a bit overwhelmed by a huge rush of nostalgic memory of childhood treats. These were some of the sweets that were doled out to us as part of our sweet ration after the war. I didn't particularly like the liquorice part, but they were such fun to eat. I used to peel off the layers of sugar fondant (I guess) on the little cubes of layered liquorice and sugar, and peel off the outside of the round ones. A bit like biting the head of the jelly babies. I did eat the liquorice but it wasn't the main game, and I didn't really like the bits of just liquorice. I think one of the main things that got me about this packet was the sweets that were covered in little hundreds and thousands - I had forgotten all about that. Sorry they don't really show up in my blurry photo - it's the blue one at the front, and the round ones with the liquorice centre. And this is what they used to look like, back in the time when I was eating them.
Back then you could also buy liquorice strips of varying thickness, and most surprising of all liquorice in its raw state. Which is really not very appetising looking, but I do remember it. It looks just like a stick, but you could chew it.
'We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.' Jerry Garcia
I gather it is the root of a plant which is a legume from southern Europe, the middle east and India. The name liquorice comes from the Greek, glukurrhiza, meaning sweet root - and yes, it does sound a bit like glucose - and apparently the active compound, glcyrrhizin, is much sweeter than sucrose. Which is odd because I do not think of liquorice as being sweet. Liquorice allsorts yes, but liquorice itself, no. And apparently the Dutch like their liquorice sweets salted. I'm not sure how it comes to be black when turned into a sweet. It has various medicinal properties but the thing that stood out was that too much is definitely a bad thing - you can actually overdose on it. It can cause hypertension and liver damage. And another interesting thing - well two really. The bulk of the liquorice that is produced these days is used in tobacco products, and most liquorice sweets, do not actually have much, if any liquorice in them - they are just flavoured with anise oil. And aniseed, anise, star anise and fennel are not related botanically although they have some of the same flavour compounds.
My last thought on liquorice is the memory of one of the best desserts I have ever eaten. It was in Adelaide at a restaurant called Possums where the chef was Phillip Serle - now doing his thing in Sydney I believe. It was called, I think, checkerboard ice-cream. And I found a picture of it!
Vanilla ice-cream, lime and pineapple sorbets with a thin line of liquorice (or maybe anise) between the blocks. It was definitely the liquorice that made it. I still remember it. It was divine. And is actually quite famous. You see it referred to now and then.
