Coincident with the publication of our book, Food and the Literary Imagination, Jane Archer, Richard Marggraf Turley and Howard Thomas just submitted a new essay for publication on the subject of darnel (more of this article in a subsequent post). Our new thoughts on the history and significance of this fascinating plant include insights into food preferences and behaviour in the 19th century, the sower parables in the Gospel of Matthew, the genetics and chemistry of darnel’s psychoactive constituents and the occurrence of Darnel(l) and its variants as given and family names. While researching this article, we came upon a cache of beautiful photographs by Franco Caldararo, that show very clearly why darnel grain is so temptingly cereal-like, and how it blushes with the same phenolic pigments as red wheat. Sig Caldararo is clearly a gifted photographer of plants, but is extremely elusive – we have not been able to find contact details for him. We should be grateful to hear from anyone who can tell us more about him. Here is the link to Caldararo’s darnel images: http://luirig.altervista.org/naturaitaliana/viewpics.php?title=Lolium+temulentum
