Take a handful of tears. This is not an attempt at poetry: They are, in fact, called tears, these tiny, translucent fragments of resin, glittering like sugar and giving off the scent of high, sweet pine. Once rooted, fed by the sun, the trees can go for long stretches without water — without any care at all. Only a species indigenous to the southern coast of the Greek island Chios produces this precious sap, prized since antiquity as medicine and seasoning for food. (In the 19th century, breath-purifying mastic chewing gum was an indulgence reportedly as beloved by the women of Constantinople as tobacco by the men.)

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Persons: Saint Isidore, Herodotus Locations: Chios, Greek Independence, Ottoman