It has been grown for centuries and was first used as a sweetener and
for cough and cold remedies by the Greeks, ancient Egyptians and
But today most of us associate liquorice with commercially-produced
sweets and filling-zinging confectionery such as Bassetts Liquorice
Allsorts, Sherbert Dabs and - of course - the famous and utterly
irresistible coin-like Pontefract Cakes.
During medieval times liquorice was grown extensively by monks in West
Yorkshire, especially around the town of Pontefract where it flourished in the deep local soil enriched by the cartloads of muck from the stews of from neighbouring Wakefield and Leeds. It had been brought to Pontefract at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries by Crusaders returning from the Middle East.
Production was revived in Tudor times, according to local legend, when dried roots were washed ashore from wrecked Armada galleons and their sweetness rediscovered by boys who clenched them between their teeth when beaten for misbehaviour at school. Nick-named 'Spanish' to this day, the herb was grown on an industrial scale for Yorkshire's many large sweet manufacturers; its botanical name Glycyrrhiza is Greek for 'sweet root' and below its distinctive foliage and pretty purple-blue flowers, its roots are indeed the sweetest naturally-occurring substance in the world.
Unlike neighbouring Wakefield's famous rhubarb crop, which was also introduced by Crusaders from its native Turkey, liquorice was replaced in the 20th century by imported stock. With ten large sweetmakers going full pelt, local growers could not meet demand and foreign supplies came in much cheaper. But Bertie Bassett will be now waving his cane in the air: for the first time in a century, the plant is to be home-grown once more.
Farmer Robert Copley, 42, will start planting the sweet treat this week on his land, appropriately on the edge of Pontefract. He hopes to produce a tonne of the sweet in two years on half an acre, missing out middlemen by cutting hundreds of lengths of the stuff to sell as chewing sticks for £1 each.
Liquorice is also used in herb teas and as an ingredient to flavour beers
and stouts including Guinness. But today there are only three factories in the UK producing liquorice sweets on a large scale - Bassetts, Tangerine Confectionery and Haribo; but they import the liquorice, mainly from Turkey, Italy and Spain.
Let's hope this sparks a bit of liquorice revolution across the UK. Meanwhile, here's a clip from YouTube of Bertie and Betty Bassett's wedding at Bassett's factory in Sheffield in 2009, just to underline the power over people's imaginations of the fabulous root.