The Book of Herbs - Rosalind Northcote (snow like ashes series txt) 📗
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It was more often used for “Broths and Decoctions” than for salads, but the tops and flowers were sometimes powdered and strewn on the top of one. It is not much used nowadays, but I once saw an excitable Welsh cook seize on a huge bunch of “dear Hyssop” with exclamations of joy. In the East, “some plants diverted fascination by their smell,”[26] and hyssop was one of these, and as a protection against the Evil Eye, was hung up in houses.
[25] “Art of Gardening,” Hill, 1563.
[26] Friend.
Lamb’s Lettuce or Corn Salad (Valeriana Locusta).Lamb’s Lettuce is variously known as mâche, doucette, salade de chanoine, poule-grasse, and was formerly called “Salade de Prêter, for their being generally eaten in Lent.” It is a small plant, with “whitish-greene, long or narrow round-pointed leaves... and tufts of small bleake blue flowers.” In corn-fields it grows wild, but Gerarde says, “since it hath growne in use among the French and Dutch strangers in England, it hath been sowen in gardens as a salad herbe,” and adds that among winter and early spring salads “it is none of the worst.” The fact of its being “recognised” at a comparatively late date, by the English, and even then through the practices of the French, perhaps accounts for the lack of English “pet” names, conspicuous beside the number bestowed on it on the other side of the Channel. De la Quintinye is not in accord with his countrymen on the subject, for he calls it a “wild and rusticall Salad, because, indeed, it is seldom brought before any Noble Company.” Despite this disparaging remark, it is still a favourite in France, and it is surprising that a salad plant that stands cold so well should not be more cultivated in this country. Lettuce is so much more recognised as a vegetable than a herb that it will not be mentioned here.
Marjoram (Origanum).Lafeu. ’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
Clown. Indeed, Sir, she was the Sweet Marjoram of the Salad, or rather the herb of grace.
All’s Well that Ends Well, iv. 5.
Nor that of quinces, nor of marjoram,
That ever from the Isle of Coös came,
Nor these, nor any else, though ne’er so rare,
Could with this place for sweetest smells compare.
Britannia’s Pastorals.
Of marjoram, mint and rue.
Devonshire Song.
The scent of marjoram used to be very highly prized, and in some countries the plant is the symbol of honour. Dr Fernie says Origanum means in Greek the “joy of the mountains,” so charming a name one wishes it could be more often used. Among[27] the Greeks, if it grew on the grave it augured the happiness of the departed; “May many flowers grow on this newly-built tomb” (is the prayer once offered); “not the dried-up Bramble, or the red flower loved by goats; but Violets and Marjoram, and the Narcissus growing in water, and around thee may all Roses grow.”
Parkinson writes it was “put in nosegays, and in the windows of houses, as also in sweete pouders, sweete bags, and sweete washing waters.... Our daintiest women doe put it to still among their sweet herbes.” Pusser mentions it among his “herbs for strewing,” and in some recipes for pot pourri it is still included. Origanum vulgare grows wild, and the dry leaves are made into a tea “which is extremely grateful.” The different kinds of marjoram are now chiefly used for soups and stuffings. Isaac Walton gives instructions for dressing a pike, and directs that among the accessories should be sweet marjoram, thyme, a little winter savoury and some pickled oysters!
[27] Friend.
POT MARJORAM
Mint (Mentha).Some running through the meadows with them bring
Cowslips and mint.
Britannia’s Pastorals, book i.
The healthful balm and mint from their full laps do fly.
Polyolbion, Song xv.
Moths white as stitchwort that had left its stem,
... Loyal as sunflowers we will not swerve us,
We’ll make the mints remembered spices serve us
For autumn as in spring.
N. Hopper.
“Mint,” says De la Quintinye, “is called in French Balm,” which sounds rather confusing; but Evelyn says it is the “Curled Mint, M. Sativa Crispa,” that goes by this name. Mint was also called “Menthe de Notre Dame,” and in Italy, “Erba Santa Maria,” and in Germany, “Frauen Münze,” though this name is also applied to costmary. This herb used to be strewn in churches. All the various kinds of it were thought to be good against the biting of serpents, sea-scorpions, and mad dogs, but violently antagonistic to the healing processes of wounds. “They are extreme bad for wounded people, and they say a wounded man that eats Mints, his wound will never be cured, and that is a long day! But they are good to be put into Baths.”[28] The “gentler tops of Orange Mint” (Mentha citrata?) are recommended “mixed with a Salad or eaten alone, with the juyce of Orange and a little Sugar.”
The mint we commonly use is Mentha Viridis or Spear Mint. “Divers have held for true, that Cheeses will not corrupt, if they be either rubbed over withe the juyce or a decoction of Mints, or they laid among them.” It has been said, too, that an infusion of mint will prevent the rapid curdling of milk. Being dried, mint was much used to put with pennyroyal into puddings, and also among “pease that are boyled for pottage.” The last is one of the few uses that survives. Parkinson complains of all sorts of mints, that once planted in a garden they are difficult to get rid of!
Cat Mint, or Nep (Nepeta Cataria) is eaten in Tansies. “According to Hoffman the root of the Cat Mint, if chewed, will make the most gentle person fierce and quarrelsome.”[29]
Pepper Mint is still retained, as is Spear Mint, in the British Pharmacopœia. “The leaves have an intensely pungent aromatic taste resembling that of pepper, and accompanied with a peculiar sensation of coldness” (Thornton).
[28] Culpepper.
[29] Folkard.
Mustard (Sinapis).Bottom. Your name, I beseech you, sir?
Mustardseed. Mustardseed.
Bottom. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well: that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire your more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.
Midsummer-Night’s Dream, iii. 1.
In 1664 Evelyn wrote that mustard is of “incomparable effect to quicken and revive the Spirits, strengthening the Memory and expelling Heaviness.... In Italy, in making Mustard, they mingle Lemon and Orange Peels with the seeds.” In England the best mustard came from Tewkesbury. It is a curious instance of the instability of fashion that only twenty-four years before Evelyn made these remarks, Parkinson wrote: “Our ancient forefathers, even the better sort, in the most simple, and as I may say the more healthful age of the world, were not sparing in the use thereof... but nowadayes it is seldom used by the successors, being accounted the clownes sauce, and therefore not fit for their tables; but is transferred either to the meyny or meaner sort, who therefore reap the benefit thereof.” He adds it is “of good use, being fresh for Epilepticke persons... if it be applyed both inwardly and outwardly.” There were some drawbacks to being sick or sorry in the “good old days.” It was customary in Italy to keep the mustard in balls till it was wanted, and these balls were made up with honey or vinegar and a little cinnamon added. When the mustard was required, the ball was “relented” with a little more vinegar. Canon Ellacombe says: “Balls were the form in which Mustard was usually sold, till Mrs Clements of Durham, in the last century, invented the method of dressing mustard flour like wheat flour and made her fortune with Durham Mustard!” We cultivate Sinapis nigra for its seed and Sinapis alba as a small salad herb.
Parsley (Petroselinum sativum).Then the old rue bush shudders as he pulls.
The Salad.
Right so begyn your mele.
Russell’s Boke of Nature.
Cold lettuce and refreshing rosmarine.
Muiopotmos.—Spenser.
Parsley has the “curious botanic history that no one can tell what is its native country. Probably the plant has been so altered by cultivation as to have lost all likeness to its original self.”[30] Superstitions connected with it are myriad, and Folkard gives two Greek sayings that are interesting. It was the custom among them to border the garden with parsley and rue, and from this arose an idiom, when any undertaking was talked of, but not begun, “Oh! we are only at the Parsley and Rue.” Parsley was used, too, to strew on graves, and hence came a saying “to be in need of parsley,” signifying to be at death’s door. Mr Friend quotes an English adage that “Fried parsley will bring a man to his saddle and a woman to her grave,” but says that he has heard no reason given for this strange and apparently pointless dictum. Plutarch tells of a panic created in a Greek force, marching against the enemy, by their suddenly meeting some mules laden with parsley, which the soldiers looked upon as an evil omen; and W. Jones, in his “Crowns and Coronations,” says, “Timoleon nearly caused a mutiny in his army because he chose his crown to be of parsley, when his soldiers wished it to be of the pine or pitch tree.” In many parts of England it is considered unlucky, and I quote from a paper read before the Devon and Exeter Gardeners’ Association in 1897. “It is one of the longest seeds to lie in the ground before germinating; it has been said to go to the Devil and back again nine times before it comes up. And many people have a great objection to planting parsley, saying if you do there will sure to be a death in the Family within twelve months.” It is only fair to add that this delightful lapse into folk-lore comes in the midst of most excellent and practical advice for its cultivation. “Quite recently (in 1883) a gentleman, living near Southampton, told his gardener to sow some Parsley seed. The man, however, refused, saying that it would be a bad day’s work to him if ever he brought Parsley seed into the house. He said that he would not mind bringing a plant or two and throwing them down, that his master might pick them up if he chose, but he would not bring them to him for anything.”[31]
The “earliest known, really original work on gardening, written in English,” is, Miss Amherst says, “a treatise in verse,” by Mayster Ion Gardener. It consists of a prologue and eight divisions, and one of these is devoted to “Perselye” alone. The manuscript in the Library of Trinity College,
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