Ambergris
Ambergris used to be a cooking ingredient. I learned about it first as a fixative in perfumes, but it was also used as late as the nineteenth century to add a subtle scent to certain delicate dishes. I had to explain to one of my test team that they wouldn’t be able to use either the ambergris or the musk listed as optional scents. Ambergris is a whale secretion and was found floating on the sea. It still is. This means it theoretically shouldn’t be unPC to use it, but it is and so I’ve never actually tasted it. Maybe it’s still used in perfumery, just quietly, where the politically correct can’t find it. You can find an article with more information (I don’t know how reliable it is, but there’s a great picture) here.
Musk is a far ickier proposition - maybe I’ll talk about it another time.
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