Silphium biography

A Turkish botanist is learning how to cultivate what some believe to be the closest living relative to a Classical-era kitchen staple written about by Romans and Greeks.

The golden-flowered “Silphium” was reported by Pliney the Elder as growing in modern-day Libya, and has been translated as being a prescription for everything from “stomach pain to wart removal, baldness and dental pain, for pleurisy and epilepsy, and a balm, according to one lyrical translation, for both the ‘dog-bitten’ and the ‘scorpion-smitten,'” writes Nat Geo. 

Silphium was also called for as a key ingredient in many Roman recipes contained within the Apicius, a 475-page cookbook written during the time of Emperor Tiberius.

It was written to be prized for its wonderful, even aphrodisiacal smell, and rich, clean flavor.

However Silphium was lost by the time of Nero, who was reportedly to have been given the last known stalk in existence. Since the Middle Ages peo