Word: kava
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Captain James Cook saw a lot of strange things when he was exploring Polynesia in 1769, but the virgins chewing kava brought him up short. After pulling the plant's root out of the ground, island girls worked it over in their mouths, reducing it to a pulp, then spit the whole mess into coconut milk. The mixture was then strained through fibers, collected in a bowl and consumed by the tribe at large. Cook's men found the practice distasteful, but what did they know? Kava, after all, had been a popular tonic in the South Seas...
What the Polynesians believed--and what many Americans now believe too--is that the lowly kava root has mind-altering effects. Prepared and consumed properly, it is said to alleviate stress, ease melancholy and generally elevate mood--all without addiction or hangover. Sound too good to be true? That hasn't stopped supermarkets, drugstores, health-food stores and discount chains like K Mart from stocking up on kava capsules, droplets and tea bags--or consumers from eagerly snapping them up. Kava sales in these stores jumped from barely a trickle to $3 million last year, and should double...
...terrible everywhere in the Pacific, Theroux discovered, although he was bemused by such oddities as omelets made from enormous eggs laid by the megapode birds of Savo in the Solomon Islands. (His verdict: "The yolkiest eggs I had ever seen.") To be sociable, the author occasionally took swigs of kava, the mouth- and mind-numbing intoxicant of the islands, which is made by chewing the root of a plant known as Piper methysticum and then mixing the blob with water. The best kava, connoisseurs assure him, comes from root masticated by pretty teenage girls...