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Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted on: February 5, 2008 10:00 AM, by Benjamin Cohen
This is a quiz. Can you best it? Will you ace it? Is your scientific knowledge sound? What about of 18th c. knowledge?
To what does this phrase, taken from a 1703 English diary, refer?
"Balsamic Panspermicall Panacea Juice of Heaven"
If ever there was a need for our sub-category, "where miscellany thrive," this might be it.
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Comments
Ooh ooh -- salad dressing!!
Salad dressing?
Posted by: Julie Kanton | February 5, 2008 10:59 AM
Newman's Own, you should say.
Posted by: JPA Iggy | February 5, 2008 12:52 PM
I actually guessed right even before I googled it.
Posted by: rev.enki | February 5, 2008 2:01 PM
Wait, what did you guess rev.enki? I tried to google it too (because come on, why try to figure it out myself?) but only found returns on this site. Certainly not salad dressing. I'd say, errr, an animal effluent?
Posted by: allenmartin | February 5, 2008 3:34 PM
I'm guessing rain - it is life-giving, although "Balsamic Panspermicall Panacea" is a bit over the top, and "Juice of Heaven" matches a liquid that falls from the sky.
I found the abstract, which does give you a bit of a clue, but have to pay for the article, so I didn't see what it actually is.
Posted by: MattXIV | February 5, 2008 4:57 PM
Something along the line of
"Wellness-enhancing" "Universal Life-Giving" "Wonder Medicine" "Rain/water from above/blessed water"
-- a medicine made from microbiotical organisms found in rain-drops?
Posted by: Till | February 6, 2008 6:01 AM
Now, I'd have said wine. I don't think that salad dressing was popular in England in 1703, but I can definitely see the phrase in a 2008 ad campaign for balsamic vinegar pomegranete juice salad dressing with soy.
Posted by: Rebecca | February 6, 2008 1:46 PM
Matt XIV's regal intuitions were right. It was rain.
Posted by: BRC | February 7, 2008 10:18 AM