"Jack Fearnley" > wrote in message
.. .
> Thanks Bob and Lee. That all sounds authoritative enough for me.
>
> Jack Fearnley
>
>

Couple of notes here (correct me if my facts are wrong but don't even bovver
wif da speiling)

cocchineal is the modern term for an insect that lives off a mexican cactus,
whose name derives from ancient Greek kokkos referring another insect that
nested in the Kermes oak, whose shell yielded a scarlet dye used by the
Spartans to dye their cloaks. Around the same time, the Phoinikians used the
shell of the murex shellfish to dye their cloaks purple. However there was
another small shellfish called kokkalos in ancient Greek which had a
spiralling red shell but which appears not to have been used to make dyes.

Maybe the reference to the shellfish was not to colour but to a gelatinising
substance, not unlike fish glue.

However, the earliest Turkish delight recipes may have played upon the
ancient Greek sources, especially their delight in talking about the mukes
mushroom - which also grew around Kermes oaks.