Carlos Mavroleon
Beware of Lettuce
The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Sustances
By Richard Rudgley
Little, Brown 320pp £18.99 order from our bookshop
Have you ever wondered what keeps Father Christmas going? Apparently, it’s the reindeer. These noble creatures are partial to grazing on fly-agaric mushrooms. It’s an old Siberian tradition that whenever you encounter a reindeer staggering across the tundra, giggling uncontrollably, you tie it up and cook it as quickly as possible to consume the meat which remains psychoactive for a short time after death. Without wanting to upset any children who might be reading this review, I feel obliged to warn their parents that Santa is on drugs.
If the idea of getting zonked on reindeer with Siberian shamans seems a little chilly, then how about a glass of Unm Nyolokh, the preferred tipple of the Humr tribe in Sudan’s Kordofan province? This hallucinatory beverage, prepared from the liver
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