Acknowledgments

Many people have been of assistance during the seventeen years that it has taken to complete this book. In no particular order, some of them are:

Jeanne Rose, herbalist extraordinaire, for her inspiration, friendship, and also for supplying mail-order sources.

Morgan of Hawaii, for allowing me to publish her Fruit Salad Spell.

Barda of Nevada, for her early encouragement and sharing of food lore and recipes.

Vinnie Gaglione, of Spellbound in Bloomfield, New Jersey, for supplying me with Italian food lore.

Laurie Cabot of Salem, for sharing her notes with me while we were working on similar projects.

Virginia Thompson of Arizona, for information about Central American food magic and ritual uses.

Robert and Virginia Thompson, for Japanese food lore.

Ray T. Malbrough of Houma, Louisiana, for many long phone calls and for providing a copy of his paper concerning Louisiana plant magic.

deTraci Regula, for Chinese food magic.

Morgan, my first teacher, who introduced me to the idea that food could be magical.

Lou and Myrna of Las Vegas, for finding all those out-of-the-way print books.

And finally, to my mother, who rarely minded my licking the spoon for all those long years.