The Book of Herbs by Rosalind Northcote (christmas read aloud txt) 📕
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[52] Complete Account of the Coronations of the Kings and Queens of England, J. Roberts.
[53] Folkard.
Thistle (Carduus Marianus and Carduus Benedictus).Margaret. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart, it is the only thing for a qualm.
Hero. There thou prick’st her with a thistle.
Beatrice. Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus.
Margaret. Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant plain holy thistle.
Much Ado about Nothing, iii, 4.
She these should ever have, and never want.
Store from an orchard without tree or plant...
And for the chiefest cherisher she lent
The royal thistle’s milky nourishment.
Br. Pastorals, Book i.
The history, legends, and traditions surrounding Thistles in general, make far too large a subject to be entered on here, and only these two varieties can be considered. Carduus Marianus, the Milk or Dappled Thistle, has sometimes been called the Scotch Thistle, and announced to be the Thistle of Scotland. As a matter of fact, I believe, that after long and stormy controversy, that honour has been awarded to Carduus Acanthioides, but the Milk Thistle’s claims have received very strong support, and so it seems most probable, considering the context, that when Browne referred to the “Royal Thistle,” it was this one that he meant. This supposition is borne out by Hogg, who writes: “As Ray says, it is more a garden vegetable than a medicinal plant. The young and tender stalks of the root leaves when stripped of their spiny part, are eaten like cardoon, or when boiled, are used as greens. The young stalks, peeled and soaked in water to extract their bitterness, are excellent as a salad. The scales of the involucre are as good as those of the artichoke, and the roots in early spring are good to eat.” The seeds supply food to many small birds, and it is from the gold-finch feeding so extensively on them that it has been called Carduelis. This partiality of the gold-finch must have been observed in several lands, for the same name occurs in different tongues. In England, it has been called Thistlefinch; in French, Chardonneret, and in Italian, Cardeletto, Cardeto being a waste covered with thistles. One cannot help remembering the charming line:—
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed,”
with the reflection that other birds besides gold-finches have a deep appreciation of it.
But to go back to the Thistle itself, after all these uses made of every part, no wonder that Browne called it a “chiefest cherisher of vital power!” Although, latterly, its reputation in medicine has fallen, in old days, on account of its numerous prickles (Doctrine of Signatures), it was thought good for stitches in the side. Culpepper has further advice: “In spring, if you please to boil the tender plant (but cut off the prickles, unless you have a mind to choke yourself), it will change your blood as the season changeth, and that is the way to be safe.”
Carduus Benedictus, called the Holy, or the Blessed Thistle, was considered a great preservative against the plague, and that it was also given for a sudden spasm is shown in the delightful scene between Beatrice and her friends in “Much Ado About Nothing.” It follows the ruse that they have just played upon her, to persuade her that Benedict is already in love with her, in the hope that she may become enamoured of him, and the play upon the name is very charming. Culpepper says that Carduus Benedictus was good against “diseases of melancholy,” which is additional evidence that Shakespeare did not go out of his way to find an imaginary remedy that would suit that occasion, but with exquisite skill took a remedy that would have been natural in his time, and surrounded it with wit. Less than a hundred years ago a decoction used to be made from its leaves, which are remarkable for their “intense bitterness,” and it was said to be an excellent tonic; but, like the Milk Thistle, the Holy Thistle’s virtues in medicine are now discredited. The thistle was once dedicated to Thor, and the bright colour of the flower was supposed to come from the lightning, and therefore lightning could not hurt any person or building protected by the flower. It was used a good deal in magic, and there is an old rite to help a maiden to discover which, of several suitors, really loves her best. She must take as many thistles as there are lovers, cut off their points, give each thistle the name of a man, and lay them under her pillow, and the thistle which has the name of the most faithful lover will put forth a fresh sprout! In East Prussia, says Mr Friend, there is a strange but simple cure for any domestic animal which may have an open wound. It is to gather four red thistle blossoms before the break of day, and to put one in each of the four points of the compass with a stone in the middle of them.
Here ends the list of Herbs, but before finishing the chapter I must add a few names of buds and berries which, though not herbs, were often employed as such, especially to garnish, or to flavour dishes. Evelyn includes many of these in his Acetaria. “The Capreols, Tendrils and Claspers of Vines,” very young, may be “eaten alone or mingled with other sallet. So may the ‘buds and young Turiones of the Tendrils’ of Hops, either raw, ‘but more conveniently being boil’d’ and cold, like asparagus.” Elder Flowers, infused in vinegar, are recommended, and “though the leaves are somewhat rank of smell, and so not commendable in sallet... they are of the most sovereign virtue, and spring buds and tender leaves excellent and wholesome in pottage at that season of the year.” Evelyn experimented with “the large Heliotrope or Sunflower (e’er it comes to expand and show its golden face), which, being dress’d as the artichoak, is eaten for a dainty. This I add as a new discovery: I once made macaroons with ripe blanch’d seed, but the Turpentine did so domineer over all that it did not answer expectation.” This must have been a disappointment to his adventurous spirit! Broom buds appeared on three separate tables at King James II.’s Coronation feast, and seem to have been popular, when pickled.
Violets were also used, and Miss Amherst quotes from an old cookery book the recipe of a pudding called “Mon amy,” which directs the cook to “plant it with flowers of violets and serve it forth.” Another recipe is for a dish called “Vyolette!” “Take flowrys of vyolet, boyle hem, presse hem, bray (pound) hem smal.” After this they are to be mixed with milk, ‘floure of rys,’ and sugar or honey, and finally to be coloured with violets. Pine-kernels were sometimes eaten. Shelley says of Marenghi:
The milky pine-nuts which the autumn blast
Shakes into the tall grass.”
And in England Parkinson writes, “The cones or apples are used of divers Vintners in this city, being painted to express a bunch of grapes, whereunto they are very like and are hung up on their bushes, as also to fasten keyes unto them, as is seene in many places. The kernels with the hard shels, while they are fresh, or newly taken out, are used by Apothecaries, Comfitmakers, and Cookes. Of them are made Comfits, Marchpanes and such like, and with them a cunning cook can make divers kech-choses for his master’s table.” Barberries were used as a garnish to salads and other dishes and sometimes as an ingredient. Evelyn mentions them as an item in “Sallet All-sorts,” and Gervase Markham describes the making of “Paste of Genoa,” a confection of Quince, and adds, “In this sort you now make paste of Peares, Apples, Wardens, Plummes of all kindes, Cherries, Barberries or whatever fruit you please.” He adds this fruit to the ingredients required in making aromatic vinegar, and also directs that a good quantity of whole Barberries, both branches and others, be served with Pike “or any fresh fish whatsoever.” Parkinson says, “The leaves are sometimes used in the stead of Sorrell to make sauce for meate, and by reason of their sournesse are of the same quality.” The “delicious confitures d’épine vinette, for which Rouen is famous,” are prepared from them, says Dr Fernie, and there is no doubt that they make an excellent jelly. Formerly they were so much prized that, as Miss Amherst quotes from Le Strange’s “Household Accounts,” in 1618, 3s. was paid for one pound of them.
Strawberry leaves were used as a garnish and for their flavour. Parkinson tells us that they were “alwayes used among other herbes in cooling drinks,” and Markham mentions both them and Violet leaves in his directions to “Smoar a Mallard,” and “to make an excellent Olepotrige, which is the only principall dish of boyled meate, which is esteemed in all Spaine. “For dessert”: The berries are often brought to the table as a rare service, whereunto Cleret wine, creame or milke is added with sugar. The water distilled of the berries is good for the passions of the heart, caused by the perturbation of the spirits being eyther drunk alone or in wine, and maketh the heart mery.” Such a pleasant and easy remedy against the evils arising from “perturbation of spirits” is worth remembering! Gerarde and Parkinson both speak of the prickly strawberry; a plant which is “of no use for meate” but which has “a small head of greene leaves, many set thick together like unto a double ruffe, and is fit for a gentlewoman to wear on her arme, etc. as a raritie instead of a flower.” Gerarde has a curious little note on its discovery. “Mr John Tradescant hath told me that he was the first that took notice of this Strawberry and that in a woman’s garden at Plimouth, whose daughter had gathered and set the roots in her garden, instead of the common Strawberry, but she finding the fruit not answer her expectation, intended to throw it away, which labour he spared her, in taking it and bestowing it among the lovers of such vanities.” The custom of transplanting wild strawberries was very general.
With strawberry rootes of the best to be got.
Such growing abroade, among thorns in the wood,
Wel chosen and picked proove excellent food.
September’s Husbandry.—Tusser.
Miss Amherst says that in the Hampton Court Accounts there are “several entries of money paid for strawberry roots, brought from the wood to the King’s garden.” The fact that this is no longer the custom, may explain the disappointment that some have experienced, who, in the hope of enjoying “the most excellent cordial smell” described by Sir Francis Bacon, have haunted their kitchen gardens when the strawberry leaves are dying, and without reward. The strawberries grown there at present are not, as in his day, natives, subjected to civilisation, but are chiefly of American or Asiatic origin (the first foreign strawberry cultivated in England was Fragaria virginiana, and was introduced from North America in 1629; four years after the Essay on Gardens was first published), and if their leaves have any fragrance, it must be of the faintest possible description. Anyone, however, who passes through a wood, towards evening, especially if it is a mild and slightly damp day in October,
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