#24 Selcouth

DDW March Challenge #24 Selcouth

Selcouth is an adjective meaning strange, unfamiliar, marvelous.

Pete and I went to Lynwood with our Hong Kong and Vietnamese friends, Isaac and Mimi, to have Pho for lunch and shop at Ranch 99, a large Asian grocery store. Isaac took me next door to the Chinese apothecary, where the proprietor introduced me to edible bird nests on the left, and Cordyceps on the right.

The edible bird nests go for up to $4,500 a pound, one of the most expensive foods in the world. The nests are made with the saliva of cave-dwelling swifters; they are difficult to find and prepare for use, hence the high price tag. Considered to have a plethora of health benefits, they are consumed in food and drink and used in cosmetics.

The Cordyceps is arguably the most expensive herb on the planet. Here, it is priced at almost $12,000 a pound. It's a selcouth mushroom that grows in the higher elevations of the Himalayas. Used as a life-reinforcing medicine, Cordyceps is said to enhance mental and physical power, to boost the immune system, and to slow and even reverse the aging process.

Selcouth connotes a feeling of strangeness combined with wonder, and implies a sense of amazement at the sight of something new and unusual. Both Pete and I actually had a chance to use the word in context today at the sight of these Chinese medicines!