The Book of Herbs by Rosalind Northcote (christmas read aloud txt) 📕
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This is a strong sign that cultivation must have been confined to certain localities, chiefly in the eastern counties, though in the west it was grown at Hereford and surrounding districts to a very considerable extent. I do not mean to imply that none was grown in neighbouring counties, but the evidence is not easy to get, and I have not gone deeply enough into the subject to find it, but the Saffron of Hereford was famed.
At Black Marston in Herefordshire, in 1506 and again in 1528, leave was granted by the Prioress of Acornbury, to persons to cultivate Saffron extensively.
In 1582, in spite of a continued demand for it, the cultivation of Saffron seems to have decreased, for Hakluyt writes in his “Remembrances for Master S.” [what to observe in a journey he is about to undertake]. “Saffron groweth in Syria.... But if a vent might be found, men would in Essex (about Saffron Walden) and in Cambridgeshire, revive the trade for the benefit of setting the poore on worke. So would they do in Herefordshire by Wales, where the best of all Englande is, in which place the soil yields the wilde “Saffron” commonly.” The soil there still yields the wilde Saffron so commonly that at the present moment it is regarded with disfavour, as being quite a drawback to some pasture lands, but it is no longer grown there for commercial purposes. Neither Gerarde (1596) nor Parkinson (1640) mention Saffron-growing as an industry, but in 1681 “I. W.” gives directions for cultivating and drying it. “English Saffron,” he says, “is esteemed the best in the world; it’s a plant very suitable to our climate and soil.” At Saffron Walden it continued to be grown for commerce for over two hundred years, but has now been uncultivated in that locality for more than a century. In Cambridgeshire, however, it flourished to a later date, and the last Saffron grower in England was a man named Knot, who lived at Duxford in Cambridgeshire, and who grew Saffron till the year 1816.
This is Turner’s advice for cultivating it.
Then Saffron comes on.
A little of ground,
Brings Saffron a pound.
The profit is thine.
Keep colour in drying,
Well used, worth buying.
And also:—
Or set or go shift it, that knoweth the ways...
In having but forty foot, workmanly dight
Take Saffron enough for a lord or a knight.
August’s Husbandry.
From old records it seems to have been grown in small patches of less than an acre, and to have been a most profitable crop. “I. W.,” in his directions says, for drying it, “a small kiln made of clay, and with a very little Fire, and that with careful attendance,” is required. “Three Pounds thereof moist usually making one of dry. One acre may bear from seven to fifteen Pound, and hath been sold from 20s. a Pound to £5 a Pound.” The last price sounds as if it existed only in his imagination, and one cannot really think that it was given often! But on one occasion, Timbs says, an even higher sum was reached, for when Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to Saffron Walden, the Corporation paid five guineas for one pound of Saffron to present to her. Though this was exceptional, the usual prices for it were very high; and to show this, and also the enormous amount that was used in cooking, Miss Amherst quotes from some old accounts of the Monastery of Durham: “In 1531, half a pound of ‘Crocus’ or Saffron was bought in July, the same quantity in August and in November, a quarter of a pound in September, and a pound and a half in October.” So much for the quantity; as to the price, a merchant of Cambridgeshire charged them in 1539-1540 for 6½ lbs. Crocus, £7, 8s.
Saffron used to be much employed to colour and to flavour pies and cakes, and it was this reason that Perdita sent the “Clown” to fetch some, when she was making “Warden” (Pear) pies for the sheep-shearing. Saffron cakes still prevail in Cornwall, and come over the border into the next county, and a chemist, in Somerset, said quite lately, that thirty years since, he used to sell quantities of Saffron at Easter-time, but that much less is asked for now. It seems to have been specially used in the materials for feasting at this season. Evelyn tells us that the Germans made it into “little balls with honey, which afterwards they dry and reduce to powder, and then sprinkle over salads” for a “noble cordial.” For medicinal purposes Saffron is imported, for in spite of “I. W.’s” praise, that grown in England is far from equalling that of Greece and Asia Minor, though in any case it is only now used as a colouring matter. The saying which survives, “So dear as Saffron,” to express anything of worth, is a proof of how great its value once was; and it is true that the plant was credited with powers nothing short of miraculous. Perhaps Fuller tells us the most startling news: “In a word, the Sovereign Power of genuine Saffron is plainly proved by the Antipathy of the Crocodiles thereunto. For the Crocodile’s tears are never true save when he is forced where Saffron groweth (whence he hath his name of γξοκό-ςτπλθ or the Saffron-fearer) knowing himselfe to be all Poison, and it all Antidote.”
After this, Gerarde’s assertion that for those whom consumption has brought “at death’s doore, and almost past breathing, that it bringeth breath againe,” sounds moderate. On the doctrine of Signatures, Saffron was prescribed for jaundice and measles, and it is also recommended to be put into the drinking water of canaries when they are moulting. Irish women are said to dye their sheets with Saffron, that it may give strength to their limbs. Saffron has long been much esteemed as a dye, and Ben Jonson tells us of this use for it in his days in lines that literally rollick:—
Shells of cockles and of small nuts,
Ribands, bells, and saffron’d linen,
All the world is ours to win in.
The Gipsies Metamorphosed.
Gerarde says: “The chives (stamens) steeped in water serve to illumine or (as we say) limme pictures and imagerie,” and Canon Ellacombe quotes from an eleventh century work, showing that it was employed for the same purpose then. “If ye wish to decorate your work in some manner, take tin, pure and finely scraped, melt it and wash it like gold, and apply it with the same glue upon letters or other places which you wish to ornament with gold or silver; and when you have polished it with a tooth, take Saffron with which Silk is coloured, moistening it with clear of egg without water; and when it has stood a night, on the following day, cover with a pencil the places which you wish to gild, the rest holding the place of silver.”—Theophilus, Hendrie’s Translation.
Meadow-Saffron, or Colchicum, yields a drug still much prescribed, of which Turner uttered a caution in 1568. He says it is a drug to “isschew.” He warns those “syke in the goute” (for whom it was, and is, a standard remedy) that much of it is “sterke poyson, and will strongell a man and kill him in the space of one day.” Drugs must, indeed, have been administered in heroic measures at that time—if he really ever heard of such a case at first hand. It is from the corm, or bulb, of the plant that Colchicum is extracted.
[51] July 22nd and August 15th.
TITLE-PAGE OF GERARD’S “HERBAL”
Samphire (Crithium maritimum).Hangs one that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
King Lear, iv. 6.
Samphire is St Peter’s Herb, and gains the distinction either because it grows on sea-cliffs, and so is appropriate to the patron of fishermen, or more probably, because it flourishes on rocks, and its roots strike deep into the crevices. The French call it Herbe de St Pierre and Pierce-Pierre, from its peculiar way of growing; and the Italians have the same name, but call it Finocchio marino as well; and this title, translated to Meer-finckell, was also the German and Dutch name, according to Parkinson. It is strongly aromatic, “being of smell delightfule and pleasant, and hath many fat and thicke leaves, somewhat like those of the lesser Purslane... of a spicie taste, with a certaine saltness.” Gerarde praises it pickled in salads. Edgar’s words show that it must have been popular in Elizabethan days, and so it was for more than a hundred years after as “the pleasantest Sauce”; and Evelyn considered it preferable to “most of our hotter herbs,” and “long wonder’d it has not long since been cultivated in the Potagère as it is in France. It groweth on the rocks that are often moistened, at the least, if not overflowed with the sea water,” a verdict which tallies with the saying that Samphire grows out of reach of the waves, but within reach of the spray of every tide. I have found it growing in much that position on rocks on the seashore in Cornwall. Two other kinds of Samphire, Golden Samphire (Inula Crithmifolia) and Marsh Samphire (Salicornia Herbacea), are sometimes sold as the true Samphire, but neither of them have so good a flavour.
Skirrets (Sium Sisarum).The noxious poppy-quencher of the mind.
The Salad.—Cowper.
“This is that siser or skirret which Tiberius the Emperour commanded to be conveied unto him from Gelduba, a castle about the river of Rhine,” and which delighted him so much “that he desired the same to be brought unto him everye yeare out of Germanie.” Evelyn found them “hot and moist... exceedingly wholesome, nourishing and delicate... and so valued by the Emperor Tiberius that he accepted them for tribute”—a point that Gerarde’s statement hardly brought out. “This excellent root is seldom eaten raw, but being boil’d, stew’d, roasted under the Embers, bak’d in Pies whole, slic’d or in Pulp, is very acceptable to all Palates. ’Tis reported they were heretofore something bitter, see what culture and education effects.” On the top of these congratulations, perhaps it is unkind to say the reported bitterness has a very mythical sound, for long before Evelyn’s time, the Dutch name for skirret was Suycker wortelen (sugar root), and that Marcgrave has extracted “fine white sugar, little inferior to that of the cane” from it. But from Turner’s account there seems to have been formerly some confusion as to the identity of the plant, and one claimant to the title was somewhat bitter, so perhaps this was the cause of the remarks in Acetaria.
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