My earliest memory of an orchid is a corsage. Big, fat, full, and fabulous, the flowers of those exotic cattleya hybrids were bred by the millions for a single night of splendor at charity balls and high-school dances across the United States. But the ravishing floral displays of these plants represent only one small part of the orchid story. Looking into the ethnobotany of the family Orchidaceae, I discovered that the plants are also used as medicines, religious charms, cosmetics, and musical instruments, as well as perfumes, food flavorings, and aphrodisiacs. Pursuing the food aspect of orchids, I happened upon a strange tale about the terrestrial orchids of Turkey. The story described a dessert made from wild orchid tubers, milk, and sugar. The frozen mixture was beaten with metal rods, eaten with a knife and fork, and capable of being used as a jump rope.
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