There is a really interesting post on 3quarks daily (a fantastic blog that Kottke.org led me to) about spices and the levels of cancer in the United States versus India. It makes a good case for eating a lot of curry. But one thing that I was really intrgued by was the following:
Sir Thomas Moore was beheaded by the order of King Henry VIII and his head was cooked in water before being impaled on a spike and displayed on London Bridge where it stayed for a month, taken down only as more heads began to arrive, eventually being returned to his daughter. Margaret Moore kept the head with the greatest reverence as long as she lived, carefully preserving it by means of spices. To this day, it stays in the custody of one of his relatives. Since 1500s, the vault containing the head was last opened in 1837, and it was still in reasonably good shape.
Good shape?
