Don Davis, age 9, of Logan, Utah, for his questions
Where does licorice come from,?
The very thought of this glossy black candy is enough to make your mouth water. Chances are, the rich tangy flavor was manufactured by a little plant growing in Spain or in Italy. The licorice p'a,nt is a tangle of ferns green leaves three to four feet tall. It is a relative of the sweetpea and at certain seasons it bears pea blossoms' then pods of seeds,
The wonderful flavor, however, does not come from the seeds, the blossoms or the leaves, It comes from the sap in the long underground roots. Unlike its cousins, the peas end the sweetpeass, the licorice is a perennial herb, That is, it lasts through several seasons. Peas and sweetpeas are annual plants, they have to be planted from seed each year. Tea licorice lives long enough to grow thick fleshy roots, three feet long or more.
Licorice likes to brow in warm, damp woody regions and it comes in a variety of qualities. Licorice of good quality grows in Turkeys Iraq Russia and India. But the very best quality is grown in Spain and Italy. We even have a wild licorice growing right here in warm damp woods and meadows, It looks like a small pea plant with yellow blossoms. The licorice grown in Spain and Italy has pale violet colored blossoms.
The good duality licorice is grown in plantations. It takes three years for them to become ready for harvest. The roots are pulled up, washed and dried and sent all over the world. Every year, we buy about 20,000 tons of dried licorice roots from Spain and Italy. This is enoug~h to make a whole mountain of glossy black candy. However, some of the delicious flavor has other fobs to do. Not all of it becomes candy.
We get the juice from the dry roots by mashing them and boiling them. It is strained out as a yellow liquid.
The first batch of juice is called licorice paste. It is usually used to cure and flavor tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, The next batch of flavor some ,juice i s the one that interests use
Some of this tangy licorice ,juice is mixed with sugar to become beady black lozenges and glossy black whip candy. Some is used to flavor chewing gum and soda pop. Some is mixed with bitter medicines to make them taste better. Then the last drop of tangy juice has been extracted' the licorice roots have still more work to do.
The strong fibers may be pressed into sheets of boxboard and cardboard They may be used as insulating fabric, coverings which keep the heat or cold either in or out. By now you mould thank that the little licorice plant had done its duty. Not at all. Not so long ago it was discovered that the root fibers could be made into foam and sprayed to put out fires.