On 20/6/06 17:09, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:

The message ews.net
from "Sue" contains these words:


"Gardening_Convert" wrote
Janet Baraclough wrote:
For aniseed taste, try the ripe seeds of fennel (supposed to
supprersss appetitie as an aid to weight loss) I also enjoy a
munch-in-passing on fennel leaf, mints, chives and garlic chives.

Fennel is supposed to also aid acid heartburn / indigestion, I take
fennel tea ( tea bags )some times it 's quite nice

It ought to work as fennel was traditionally an ingredient in the gripe
water given to babies with colic.

Wasn't that dill? (in Woodwards' gw, anyway).

I swear by gripe water. Strangely, in Glasgow there's a widespread
urban myth that it's the alcoholic recourse of slatterns, akin to
feeding babies on gin. As a young ma I was upbraided by another for
making my comatose baby drunk on gripewater, (instead of screaming for
hours on end, blue in the face, like her own). So I showed her the
bottle which listed the contents by proportion, "alcohol 0.025 %".

"Like I said " she said scornfully " twentyfive percent; that means a
quarter of the bottle is pure alcohol".

Sounds like she and I had the same maths teacher. ;-) But some years ago
there was a documented theory that children given gripe water did become
alcoholics. I can't remember how long ago I read this but I think it when
mine (now mid twenties to thirty) were past that stage.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(email address on website)