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Nabil Ali, "Gold from Newton's Apple Tree: Historical Recipes for Natural Inks, Paints, and Dyes" (Princeton UP, 2026)
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Nabeel Ali
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Commercial Narrator
welcome
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Nabeel Ali
to the New Books Network
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today because we get to talk about quite an intriguing book titled Gold from Newton's Apple, Historical Recipes for Natural Inks, Paints and Dyes, published by Princeton University Press in 2026. Now this book is doing a whole bunch of things. On the one hand, it is a deep dive into some pretty intriguing source material to figure out how to how artists, for instance, made ink, made paint, made dye. Well before we had kind of all the shops and options available to artists today and investigated all sorts of things. They used herbs and plants and I mean we're going to get into the many, many things that they got up to and that's part of what the book is doing. The book is also, however, investigating whether those recipes still work quite practically, what the impacts are of sort of following these medieval scripts and what the kind of outcome is. So it's a historical deep dive. It's a practical deep dive. And so I'm very pleased to have the author of the book, Nabeel Ali, here to tell us all about the multiple different skills and investigations that have all come together in this finished book. Nabeel, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
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Nabeel Ali
Well, thank you, Miranda, for inviting me today and it's a pleasure for me to talk about my book. Thank you.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, I'm very pleased to have you. Could you start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to write this book?
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Nabeel Ali
Well, my name is Mirvil Ali. I'm a research artist and writer and I'm affiliated with Cambridge University Botanic Garden as artist in residence and a researcher on site. I've decided to write the book because I wanted to write a book for, for the last two, three decades and I suppose the last five years working in, in Cambridge, it's really pushed me forward regarding my own exploration and experimentation regarding the plaster they grow in their linen collections. So when I was approached by the publisher, how could I refuse?
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
I mean, it does sound pretty cool. So fair enough, given to want to say yes to something like this. Thinking then, about the readers who might be intrigued by the book. Who, I guess, are you imagining that they are, and what do you hope that they take away from it?
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Nabeel Ali
I mean, that's a really good question because, I mean, the book is quite a dense subject and it's multidisciplinary. So, you know, as soon as people look at the pictures and start reading the text, it's to do with plants. So horticulturalists, gardeners, whether they're professional or amateurs. And then I talk about the recipes and the practicalities or how you can produce a plant into a dye, an ink or a paint. So artists and craftspeople will be really intrigued about how to do things. Historians as well, I think, because I touch on medieval manuscripts, recipes, and also old, older sources from the third century B.C. the historians will have a wild time of, you know, digging deep into the text that I've written. Generally science conservation, who I've worked with over a number of years, they're intrigued with the plant recipes because they need to know those particular technology when they're restoring manuscripts or paintings and they're interested. So the interesting the interested parties are regarding technical manuscripts is across the board. So the book generally is for anyone.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I think there's multiple entry points and sort of intrigue, as you mentioned. But as I am in the category of historian, I do want to pick up, as you mentioned, on the intriguing sources you have to work with here. So can you take us back in time to the people who were making and using these recipes, obviously, way before we get to you recreating them. Who was doing this in the medieval and early modern periods? How were they recording all of these ideas?
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Nabeel Ali
Well, they were recording the ideas through notes, you know, because a lot of them are technical manuscripts from workshops. So, you know, you have trade workshops. A lot of the people that were using them were professionals. They were either connected with the guilds, but there were points where it did spin over to the religious sectors or the religious orders, you know, scriptoriums. So monks would have come across older manuscripts which were made from the 1st century, 3rd, 4th century, 5th century onwards. And I'm not saying they started from that point. It could have been a lot later than that. And I think, you know, they were copying, so a lot of the recipes were copying, were copied. And, you know, the people who were using them were. Were craftspeople mainly. But I must. I must stress this point. When it comes down to organic paint or organic colorants, because they are more sensitive. So than, say, minerals or earth colors, the application is a lot different. So I will get onto that point a bit later in the conversation.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about some of that sensitivity now. For one thing, the kind of obvious thing I was thinking of as I was reading through the book was like, okay, well, if this plant makes this die, that's great. But doesn't that plant kind of only have those flowers or the leaves at that size sort of at particular times of year? So, like, how seasonally specific are these methods? And what did people do when it wasn't the right season?
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Nabeel Ali
I mean, that's a great question because, you know, I talk about, you know, if you use this plant, you know, if you use the seeds or if you, if you use the berries or leaves, they're not always there. So spring, autumn is the, The. The prime months to actually either collect or gather. Autumn be the harvest, etc. But even in winter, you can still produce color in winter from fresh berries. For example, the sweet box berries, and that produce the wonderful purple and blue color. And I think, you know, when it comes down to which plants you can collect, I mean, it's a vast collection. I mean, I just want to talk about buckle berries. And this is a historic farm where the unripe berries, which is mostly in May, June, produce a yellow color. And then when they ripen to blackberries, they you can produce a green color, but if you want a yellow, but the berries are already ripe, then you have to wait the following year. That's if you haven't collected them and dried them in the first place. So, you know, there are ways of collecting and seasonal. You know, the seasons do have a big part to play because one year might be better yield or better harvest than the following year. So it's not always standard.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's so intriguing. Was I. Presumably that was something they knew. What, like, what happened if someone got a commission and then was like, oh, no, wait, you're gonna have to wait nine months. Like, was that a thing?
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Nabeel Ali
No, no. I think there are ways of preserving the color. So, for example, you know, if you collect some of the. Some of the material in. In the summer, you can either dry it out, you. Or you can make a dye, and then you can fix that to chalk to make pigment. And I will talk about it in the framework in a little while, because I will quote Vitrufius, which. He was a Roman architect and engineer in the first century bc, and he's the author of the ten books of architecture. And basically, in one of his chapters, he talks about a particular process to make a yellow pigment by mixing a dye, adding it to chalk, let it dry, and then you can safeguard it to use when. Whenever you want, throughout the year. So my whole practice is based on that theory. And I think when it comes down to drying the plants out, they have to be dried before you store them or else they'll go moldy. So there are, like, little rules and regulations regarding how to actually store some of these plants, but they are. They are readily available. You know, for example, if indigo, you know, that's being traded for, you know, a long, long, long time. And I think, you know, they don't send the plant. They process the plant in a season, then they block it up into compressed pigment, then they pass it through the trades. So there's always, always materials to use, and it's not just one material. So when it comes down to organic material, that's just one element of a palette. You know, they might use certain orphan melgar or vermilion or lapis maybe. So there's other inorganics and minerals that they do use apart from organic.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, that's helpful to understand the kind of level of complexity, really, that is undergirding all of this. And obviously, you mentioned a way that you have to make sense of this, the framework. So can we go through that, please?
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Nabeel Ali
Oh, yes. This is a huge key in my book and to my practice. So when I talk about the framework, it's compartmental elements of the ingredients that you, that you need to make an organic paint. So for example, you know, you have parts of the plant, the fillers, the liquid substance, the preservatives, the binders and the additives. So if we go back to the plant, the parts of the plants that could be the leaves, the roots, the berry, fruits, seeds, flowers, petals, stem ins and bark. So once you source those particular materials, then you extract it to get some dye, then you need to add that dye to a filler. So the fillers could be chalk, eggshells, marble dust, gesso, cuttlefish clay, china clay. So that's added to the feathers. But then we have to decide whether or not we're going to use water, wine, alcohol or clear vinegar. And you know, some recipes, they just say they'll use water or rain water, which is fine. But through my experience and practice regarding experimentation with some of these recipes, when I originally started back in Yode 2000s, I use water and then within a matter of weeks there's mold grown on top of it. So therefore I found a recipe where they, they said use white wine. And I'll get onto that recipe in a while. And using white wine is great because in this reserves, it's really in wine. But alcohol as well, you know, for example, if you're making an ink, you know, whether it's from oak doors or even poppy petals, you know, if you make it using vodka, you could make it as very high percentage of alcohol. And then afterwards you could keep it in the freezer and it won't freeze. And when you take out, it's still fresh. So there's this, there's pros and cons regarding the liquid substance that you use. But if you, if you do use water, then you have to add a preservative. And you know, with the framework, I do talk about preservatives, either grapefruit seed extract, rosemary, oil, vinegar or cloves. So I found that using grapefruit seed extract really does help to preserve and fight the combat of mold growth. And then you have a binder because after you've actually made the pigment and you have to add the diatom filler to make pigment, when that dries, it's not a paint yet, it's only a pigment. So you have to make it into a paint. So that's where the binders come into it. What I mean by binders, that could be gum arabic, gum, tragicanath, rabbit skin, Glue, isinglass glue or parchment glue. Or even if you go to your kitchen, it could be egg white or egg yolk. So there's other elements I try and explain to people where, you know, some of these materials, I think, are so specialist that they can't get their hands on. But. But you can. They're all around you. It's all about being aware and being open to actually see where you can find your materials. And when it comes down to making the dye bright, and that's the additives and mordants. So the morden pretty much means to brighten or to change with duller coloring, and also acts as a fixative when dying textiles, which is really, really important. So as I'm a painter and not a textile or dye artist, my. Primarily my. My primary objective is to make a paint, so a dye. To me, it's a midway point to make an organic paint. So just to brighten the dye, you could do either alum, a tin morten, which brightens a. And even potash, which is alkaline, that can brighten certain pigments and use those. And in a nutshell, the framework is a good structure to build upon, and it's open to everyone. So, you know, if somebody wants to read the book and, you know, find out that some of the plants are growing in their own garden, they can go into their garden, look at the framework, follow the framework, and by the end of the day, they'd be making color from their own garden.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah. I was very surprised, to be honest, by how many of those kind of ingredients that you mentioned were like, oh, wait, that isn't some ridiculously specialist thing. Like, oh, that is something that one could experiment with. But obviously you are experimenting to the level, as you mentioned, of years and decades of experience. So can you tell us a little bit more about your practice? Like, do you go into the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and clip something and then, I don't know, are there lots of pipettes involved? Like, how does. How does your practice work?
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Nabeel Ali
Sure. I was experienced before I came to the Cambridge Botanic Yards. And I think with my knowledge, I had a few years trial and error beforehand. So I was well versed when I knocked on their door. And the thing was, when I went through the gate, they've got over 8,000 species. And it's like, where do you start? And then, you know, being new to the area because it's like 40 acres, it's like wandering around the garden, visually seeing what's there.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
And yes, this is exactly my question. Like, it's Massive. Where do you start?
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Nabeel Ali
Well, they gave me a few maps which is behind the scene maps and therefore the whole. They're for horticulturists so when they're dealing with certain beds and certain plants and stuff, it's all mapped. Obviously the public don't say that, but when you're inside you can actually and navigate yourself from area to area and then looking upon because I was there for about my first residence Residency was about 4C months. So I've there for one whole season. So I saw the garden in, in spring, autumn, winter and summer. And I'm thinking, you know, it really helped me to understand, you know, when the best time to collect stuff, when the best time to, to harvest or, or, or you know, when, when did the leaves appear for certain plants. So I started off with trade plants. When I mean by trade plants these are plants that are very established in history. For example, you've got W and madder and they were three key trade plants that gives you yellow, blue and red. And they use that in the dyeing industry for if thousands of years. And I think you know, with that starting point it was a good grounding for me to actually explore around those plants. And you know, a lot of it was new. You know, a lot of it is primary research and field work. And it's like well, I wonder what this would make, I wonder what would that would make. And I do have a structured system regard, you know, going back to the framework, you know, taking the plant, putting it through the framework and seeing what color comes out. So it is a very good methodology to actually work with. And I think with the thousands of plants to, to work from, I've just touched the tip of the iceberg and there's so much to be discovered. And I think with you know, my practice, I mean it goes back to my first herd garden that I, I created in 2000. So you know, I created 30 different herbs from seed and create, you know, within two years I created a, an established herb done. And I think from that it's what I could do with those plants. So I took those, I took my garden to, to my degree and from my degree and from the plant I created an artist plant farm palette. And I think it is the first steps of doing something new but using old technology.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that is really quite both daunting and intriguing to have so many options available to kind of figure out. And I think the seasonality. Right this is now the second time we've talked about it is such a key element too but that's, of course, only one part of the process to get to something like the framework you mentioned. Right, right. So let's kind of walk with you, I suppose, through the garden. You've identified a plant you want to look at. You've seen it over some months. You've decided now is the time. What experiments do you do then? Like, how do you know this one works well with egg yolk, that one works well with wine? Like, what sorts of materials do you test it on? Like, how does that work?
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Nabeel Ali
Well, first of all, if, if there's flowers, obviously the first thing I'll see is that, okay, what the flowers grow. Growing. You know, I see flowers in a different mind than say, in a horticulture sort of gardener where, you know, they say, isn't a beautiful flower growing in the dark. I feel I'm. I automatically think, what color does that plant make? That's my first thought. So if there's a flower growing, then, you know, I have to be. I have to be mindful of these particular plants. But some of them are rare and some, some they might only have three or four flowers. And because it's a public garden as well, I have to be sure not to take all the flowers. So when the public come, there's none left. So if there's only a few flowers, I research around the actual plant before I do anything. And a quick test is to take a small flower and rub it on some paper. And if it makes a mark, a color mark, it has a it. So therefore it's a potential for a color. So I might collect a handful of those. Then I might go back to my. My workshop in the Botanic Gardens. No longer have it that I was at a little workshop there, and then put it in a saucepan, then cook it up, just the dye, just to extract the. The dye stuff. And then I've got something called side tests. And the side test is four dishes with four different mordants in. So that could be alum, tin, iron, potash, and sometimes carbonate of soda, which you can find in your kitchen. And why I use all those different ones, because alum is pH2, pH3, so acidic. And potash is alkaline, which is like pH12, and carbonate. The soda is like pH9, which is just above neutral, but not as alkaline as potash. And all of those mordens give a different characteristic of the color when you add it to the dye. So it could make it brighter, it could make it duller, it might have no change whatsoever. So they're the side tests to actually inform me about which mordant to use in the big pan when I start dying and making color. And then from there onwards, once I've established the actual board to use, I'm clicking away. Then I'm reducing the dye so it's condensed. And if I'm making the paint, then I choose, okay, do I add it to chalk or eggshells or china clay? And that's really important because. Because, for example, if I'm cooking up elderberries, which, as other people know about elderberries, you know, for wine or making food or anything else, you know, it has a good tinting strength, which means it dies really well. And when you add it to chalk with alum, it turns green, or if you mix it with vinegar, it turns blue. And if you add it to china clay, there's some quarries down in Cornwall if you want to look into that. And it turns pink when you mix it with the clay. So the fillers really have an important key to play. So with the framework, they all work with one another. And it's. And there's lots of different variants. And that's where it becomes complex, and through experience, it becomes more fluent.
- [23:50]
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- [26:04]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
And you end up being able to do some pretty cool things. So if we talk about a particular recipe, the one in the title, gold from Newton's apple tree. Is that a thing?
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Nabeel Ali
Yes, it is. Absolutely. There's a story for this because in 2016 I went to the Botanic Gardens and I casted one of the apples. So it was in the autumn, the apples and on the floor, my ass. Permission, obviously. And I casted an apple and sort of a two part mold out of stone plaster so I can replicate an actual apple from the actual tray. But because I think in 2022, in the, in the, there's a big storm in the UK where it blew down the tree. So Newton's apple tree no longer existed. You know, if it died about a year before from honey fungus, which, which is a particular disease in the soil and it attacks the root system. It's very hard to get out of the, out of the soil. So what the garden did, they logged it. In other words, they either cut it into pieces or they stored it in the, in their behind the scenes glass house. And I asked permission if I can actually take some of the barks and actually do some experiments. They said, well, listen to, you know, you can, you can, you know, explore as much as you want. So there was peeling bark from, from Newton's apple tree and it's the inner bark that produces the color. So, so first of all, I added bark to water, heated that up in a Saucepan, then added, obviously did some side tests which I spoke about earlier. And the best water to use was alum. It brightens the color. So I added alum to it and it brightened the country like a golden yellow. So when it was added to chamois leather or soft leather, it really looked beautiful. You know, when it comes down to the coloration, and I kind of coined it. Well, that's Newton's gold. Newton's apple gold. And there is an early 16th century German manuscript called the Book of the Eliminator. It references recipes for making apple bark dye. And it's not just yellow. You can produce red as well. So, yeah, there's multiple colors you can produce from an apple tree.
- [28:38]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's pretty cool. Indeed. Thank you for taking us through that particular instance or example from the book. You've mentioned a few other ones specifically that obviously, as you mentioned, for example, indigo has been around for quite a long time. Are there any other plants that you kind of came across that really did live up to sort of their medieval famousness when you tested them?
- [29:02]
Nabeel Ali
Oh, absolutely. I think in indigo, you know, recent publications have said that, you know, they've, they've analyzed India that dates back, you know, 32, 45, 40, sorry, 34,000 years ago. So it's been around for some time. I mean, I call that the queen of blues. Indigo is the queen of blues, similar to woad, which in the UK European equivalent, it's more of a gray balloon than a deep blue. You know, we have madder as well, so madder root. And you know, there's, there's recipes that go back 6,000 years, like on, on clay tablets. And I think with, with madder, there's a, there's a whole bed in, in the botanic garden where the garden, the horticulture is actually dug up for me. Know, they were changing the beds around this and the other, and I said, you know, can you dig some of this maddow up for me? They said, oh, of course, yeah. So there they were digging it up and I had a big, I still have a big bag of Madame. But the root is very, very small. It's not like the Middle Eastern matter where, yes, it was coming from that particular area. And it does, it does produce a very, very bit red and orange as well. And there's other ones like buckthorn berries, as I mentioned earlier. And I think, you know, they had a wonderful bush in, a very, very established bush in, in the garden where, you know, I was just collecting the unripe berries for the yellow and then when it was ripe and I was doing experiments for the green and you know, does play a big part in certain to what the recipes say. I mean it's fairly true to what they say but in some of them you have to decipher about, about what they meant. And also there's, there's certain, there's certain plants that obviously in the medieval periods were very, very used plants in the industry, for example, like Brazil. Obviously I can't, you know, go into the garden like chop down a redwood and take the inner heart bark, you know, the bark of the year, the heart of the bark and to produce a red color. So there's limitations but I think a lot of the plants that I was working with was with 1Y. I haven't been tried before to my knowledge and you know there's very little research on some of them and you know, I'm sort of like not rogue going the garden but I was, I was pretty much let loose, you know and like seeing what colors these can make, you know, these class can do this or you know, these, this a variant through the frame that can produce this particular shade. And I'm thinking, you know, with, with that kind of freedom it's, sometimes it can be a bit daunting because there's no boundaries. You know, it's like where do you start? Where do you stop? You, you know.
- [32:03]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, but pretty cool too, the things you were able to conquer.
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Nabeel Ali
Absolutely. Oh absolutely. I think they, they were very kind to me and you know, it's, yeah, I will remember them dearly, you know, with you know, the staff and the people working at the Cambridge University Botanic Islands and you know, and, and you know, they, they. I can remember Sam, you know, Professor Sam Brockton actually saying, you know, right at the beginning he says, bill, you have to do it yourself. We're not going to do it for you. And you know, he sort of like pretty much says go for it. And I did.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, no, clearly. And you mentioned you still have for example some of the madder root that you were able to get from the garden. What about the things that you dyed? Like are these stable and long lasting either dyes themselves or the items you put them on?
- [32:55]
Nabeel Ali
Yeah, that's great question. It always comes up, you know, they will say, you know, people say, you know, how stable are these dyes? You know, you know, they're organic, well, they fade. And I'm thinking, well, nothing's forever as Rule 1. Always remember in your mind nothing is forever. And rule two in my mind is These are colors for the moment. So we're always living in the future. We're always never living in the present. We're always looking, looking ahead, you know, like oh, what will it be like in one year, five years, ten years time? I, I understand that historians and museum staff understand that concept because of their preserving a particular item for artifacts. I think when it comes down to the preparation, you know, say for example, if you're dying some cloth as like state. I'm not a, a dyer per se, I'm a, I'm a painter. So you know, if, if you're preparing a, you know, some, some fabric to dye, that's the key, it's the preparation. So you'd, you'd pre. More the, the fabric before you would dye it. Or if you want to make a green color, you wouldn't get a green, the dye from one plant you'd over dye. For example, you, you dyed some cloth with wood or indigo to produce a blow and then you wanted a green. Then you re dip it into a yellow dye vap that could be buckthorn or weld or some other color. And then the overdye will give that, give you that stronger green because you've got multiple layers and multiple processes to safeguard that color. Same with purples with red and blue and oranges with red and yellow. The same kind of principles with that, that's for the dye inside of it. But when it comes down to paint, there are some plants that are less stable. So for example, if we take the ball scale industry test, that's a skull touched from one to one being wood weak and eight being strong. I think with organics it's more to do with 4 and 5. Whereas like where there's synthetic dyes and colorations, you know that, that could be seven or eight, you know, like, you know, you look around in our environment, you will see some colors that have gone through those tests. You know, the, the light fast tests. But with organic it they are, it is what it is. You know, it's different, designed in its structure to degrade, but you can safeguard that. So for example, I come across two recipes. One from the Strasbourg manuscript, which is an Old German 15th century manuscript, and a recipe from a 14th century manuscript called the Leibe Dives Ren asean, which means the blood of various arts. There's a great publication, a 2011 publication by Dr. Mark Clark. He, he, he translates the whole nib and there's a poppy recipe and, and it's, I've combined the LDA or the live adverse IM recipe with the Strauss recipe and added wine, which produces red color, red ink from poppy petals. It says, it says what it does. I mean, it does what it says on the recipe and it is a very, very blood red color. But the thing is, it's very. Going back to the wall scale Test, it's about 2, so it's very weak enough. Kind of says, well, how can I, how can I make this color stronger? Because it's such a, such a potential color. So what I did was I added isinglass, which is the, it's a fish glue and it's from the sturgeon, the bladder of the sturgeon fish. So I've added that as a protein and it kind of reflects some of the uv, so it prolongs the color. So I've pushed out from 2 to 3 on the wall scale. So, you know, adding other ingredients, tweaking it here and there, using a framework and variants. You can prolong the coa. But going back to your question, it's, you know, nothing is forever when it comes down to organic.
- [37:26]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
But that's part of what's fascinating about it. So thank you for kind of answering that commonly asked question and giving us a more nuanced understanding of the sort of immediate outcome and sort of what happens over time. Obviously, through this conversation, we haven't been able to cover every single recipe or plant in the book, but I've asked you about some and you've given us a sense of kind of how the process works in general. Was there a particular plant or dye that you came across in putting all of this together that we haven't mentioned yet that was really memorable to you and you want to add it into the discussion?
- [38:00]
Nabeel Ali
Absolutely. I think there's, as you say, I mean, there's so much, so many, but there's one that really stands out for me, and that's the iris, the Archdemanica, one of my previous gardens, because each place I live will have a particular garden. And my previous garden I grew a crop of Iris germanicus, and that's the medieval iris plant, and it's a purple flower. And, you know, they've been growing for centuries. And I think Pliny talks about iris, that the ancient Greeks used the, the root for perfume. And I think, you know, this, it's, it's rich for, you know, the history is from very, very rich. But the experiments like a bit of iris. It's, it's not an obvious color because you cook it up using my framework. So you cook the flowers up and then, yeah, the The. The water turns a muddy purple color. You think, think, oh, good, that's an awful color. So you add some more than to brighten it. So an adam that kind of brightened it. It's like this purple color. I'm thinking, great. And I want to make a pigment that's. I want to make a paint. So. So I've added the dye to some chalk that turns green. And I don't mean just green. It's like a vivid green. And I'm thinking, wow, you know, it's like, you know, this has given me a. A really strong color that's a hidden color. But there was a recipe or is a recipe from the 15th century in Pembroke College, Oxford, where it's. It's making green for. Eliminate it. And this. I'll quote what it says in the recipe. It says, to make a good green for eliminating. Take the fleur de lis and stamp it with a little alum and then write through cloth and let it stand until it has dried. And it's. It's an. It's. It's a link to the practice of what they were calling it then. So, you know, the iris is the fleur de loo. Obviously, there's controversial debate regarding whether or not it's the lily. And, you know, I talk about that in my book. I'll go into a little bit more depth with it. But, you know, with the iris, there's. I contacted most of the iris societies around the world, asking them in each country to send me some of their iris flowers when they're dried. So once. Once they've grown, once they've been spent, in other words, once they've dried up and they throw up, they throw them on the compost heap. There's more life to it. And the more life, you know, you put into it, it's the color you get from it as well. So when it comes down to each society around the world, you know, the most kindest and the society that really reached out back to me was their American Irish society. And an excellent judge called Chad Harris. He had a field of crops in his property, field of crops, you know, prized crops. And he. And he shows. And he shows them, and I asked him, can you send them some. Some of your flowers to me? He did. Obviously, I have permission through Deathra. And he sent a big bag of dry flowers. So I processed them, and it was a. A Japanese hybrid. And it's not just green you can make from iris. You can produce a. A blue as well. And it's a fantastic play so, yeah, iris is originally.
- [41:37]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Get one that's very cool indeed. Thank you for telling us a bit about that particular flower in the book. And it sounds like one that kind of was not what you expected to do, but one you kind of figured out. Are there any plants or recipes you're still sort of playing with or kind of want to get a better recipe for?
- [41:58]
Nabeel Ali
Well, yes, I mean, I'm kind of working with hibistus at the moment and that's the, the red flower, hibiscus, where I think I've produced a recipe, my own recipe in my book called Making a Glossy Magenta Glaze. And that's pretty much what it is. But I've only done that once and I'm thinking how can I develop that into a stronger paint? So there's lots more research and practicalities regarding that particular plant. But hibiscus.
- [42:35]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, well, that definitely sounds intriguing and a cool colour to figure out. Is there anything else you're currently working on, whether or not it's dye related that you want to tell us about now that the book is done?
- [42:46]
Nabeel Ali
Yes, I've got a few things in the pipeline, but nothing's guaranteed until I have target the funding, which I'm still waiting for a decision for. And that's been architecting residents having field research in the Amazon rainforest to work with the forest gatekeepers in sharing colour knowledge used by the indigenous protected groups. And I've really established a connection with the gatekeepers in the western Brazil where the villages are still quite together so they haven't been interfered with and they are protected. And you know, if I get the framework. Sorry, if I get, if I get the, the funding, I will bring my framework to them without interfering too much because I'd like to focus on the plants growing in the rainforest to produce color from. And that could lead into another potential book and a documentary as well. So, yeah, I have ideas, but they don't always come through.
- [43:55]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, no, fair enough. That certainly sounds worth pursuing. And of course, while you are doing that, listeners can read the book we've been talking about titled Gold from Newton's Apple, Historical Recipes for Natural Inks, Paints and Dyes, published by Princeton University Press in 2026. Nabeel, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [44:14]
Nabeel Ali
Thanks for having me. Thank you very much.
- [44:28]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho, look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling, Ross. Work your magic.