Today i learned that the ingredient Asafoetida is known by different names such as devil’s dung, stinking gum, asant and hing. Silphium, the predecessor of asafoetida (also known as silphion or lasar), was an ancient spice from the region of Cyrene (now in modern Libya).

The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.

– Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals