Spices

I am by the Aga again, waiting for my Christmas cake to cook slowly in the bottom oven. The delicious spicy smells are making me hungry! It’s been a bit of a mission to cook, days of the fruit soaking in rum, weighing out the ingredients and grinding the spices, and finally giving my arms a workout to bring it altogether. But it is so worth the effort and something I do each year, even when we are away for Christmas. It wouldn’t be the same without it; it’s part of my Christmas routine. A few years ago, my grandchildren helped with the icing and decided it should have Lego men as well as a very old Father Christmas and plastic tree. It ended up a mix of space Lego and a snow scene and I have done it ever since.
 
I have been preparing my Explorers’ lesson for Sunday about the three wise men and the gifts they brought to the infant Jesus, and I realised that I knew very little about the spices apart from their symbolic importance - the gold signifying His Kingship; the frankincense denoting His Deity; and the myrrh a foreshadowing of His death.
 
What do they smell like; where do they come from? So, a couple of taps on the keyboard gave me some answers.
 
Apparently, the scent of myrrh is complex. It is often described as having a balsamic, slightly spicy and slightly smoky odour. Some people say it has a note of undergrowth or dried earth; its fragrance is resinous and rich. Myrrh was a sacred anointing oil. Frankincense was a perfume and spiritual incense, burned in temples throughout the East. According to some scholars, myrrh (“mor” or, in Arabic, “murr”) had a greater value than gold when Jesus was born.
 
Both frankincense and myrrh are resins derived from tree sap. Both were valuable commodities. Frankincense is a milky white resin extracted from the Boswellia tree, or Frankincense tree, which thrives in arid, cool areas of the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa and India. The finest and most aromatic of this species is Boswellia sacra, a small tree that grows in Somalia, Oman and Yemen. These plants, which grow to a height of 16 feet (5 metres), have papery bark, sparse bunches of paired leaves, and flowers with white petals and a yellow or red centre.
 
Myrrh resin is a reddish colour and comes from species of the genus Commiphora, which is native to north east Africa and the adjacent areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Commiphora myrrha, a tree commonly used in the production of myrrh, grows best in the shallow, rocky soils of Ethiopia, Kenya, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. It boasts spiny branches with sparse leaves that grow in groups of three and can reach 9 feet (3 metres). Harvesters make a longitudinal cut in the tree's trunk, which pierces gum resin reservoirs within the bark. The sap slowly oozes from the cut and drips down the tree, forming tear-shaped droplets left to harden on the side of the tree. These hard resins are collected after a couple of weeks.
 
Frankincense and myrrh have been produced for some 5,000 years. For much of this time, they were the region's most important commodity, with a trade network that reached across Africa, Asia and Europe. Today both are widely used for their various health benefits and are readily available.
 
I think I will treat myself to a candle with these this Christmas, so I can more fully understand their scent. So now, thanks to those delicious Christmas cake smells, when I hear that the wise men brought their aromatic gifts, I will be able to appreciate them more.

Image by sebastiano iervolino from Pixabay