The Book of Herbs by Rosalind Northcote (christmas read aloud txt) 📕
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SWEET CICELY AND OTHER HERBS
Dill (Anethum graveolens).Therewith her vervain and her dill.
Nymphidia.—Drayton.
’Gainst witchcraft much availing,
The Muses Elysium.
Polyolbion. Song xiii.
Dill is supposed to have been derived from a Norse word “to dull,” because the seeds were given to babies to make them sleep. Beyond this innocent employment it was a factor in working spells of the blackest magic! Dill is a graceful, umbelliferous plant—not at all suggestive of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde—and the seeds resemble caraway seeds in flavour, but are smaller, flatter and lighter. There is something mysterious about it, because, besides being employed in spells by witches and wizards, it was used by other people to resist spells cast by traffickers in magic, and was equally powerful to do this! Dill is very like fennel, but the leaves are shorter, smaller, and of a “stronger and quicker taste. The leaves are used with Fish, though too strong for everyone’s taste, and if added to ‘pickled Cowcumbers’ it ‘gives the cold fruit a pretty, spicie taste.’” Evelyn also praises ‘Gerckens muriated’ with the seeds of Dill, and Addison writes: “I am always pleased with that particular time of the year which is proper for the pickling of dill and cucumbers, but, alas! his cry, like the song of the nightingale, is not heard above two months.”[22]
[22] Spectator, xxv. 1.
Endive (Cichorium Endivia).Pastorals.—Gay.
Or the curl’d endive’s bitter leaf, he fed.
The Salad.—Cowper.
Endive is a plant of whose virtues our prosaic days have robbed us. Once upon a time it could break all bonds and render the owner invisible, and if a lover carried it about him, he could make the lady of his choice believe that he possessed all the qualities she specially admired! Folkard quotes three legends of it from Germany, one each from Austria and Roumania, and an unmistakably Slav story—all of them of a romantic character—and we regard it as a salad herb! “There are three sorts: Green-curled leaved; principal sort for main crops, white-curled leaved, and broad Batavian” (Loudon). The green-curled leaved is the hardiest and fittest for winter use. The Batavian is not good for salads, but is specially in demand for stews and soups. All kinds must, of course, be carefully blanched. Mrs Roundell[23] reminds one that endive is a troublesome vegetable to cook, as it is apt to be crowded with insects. The leaves should be all detached from the stem and carefully washed in two or three salted waters. She also gives receipts for endive, dressed as spinach, made into a purée or cooked alone. Parkinson said: “Endive whited is much used in winter, as a sallet herbe with great delighte.”
Succory, Chicory, or Wild Endive may be mentioned as making an excellent salad when forced and blanched, and it is popular in France, where it is called Barbe de Capucin. Its great advantage is, as Loudon says, that “when lettuce or garden-endive are scarce, chicory can always be commanded by those who possess any of the most ordinary means of forcing.” He adds that it has been much used as fodder for cattle, and that the roots, dried and ground, are well known—only too well known, “partly along with, and partly as a substitute for coffee.”
[23] “Practical Cookery Book.”
Fennel (Fæniculum vulgare).Hamlet, iv. 5.
An evil thing it is sure,
But I have alwaies meant truely
With constant heart most pure.
A Handfull of Pleasant Delightes.—C. Robinson.
Count. Your good lord! Oh! how this smells of fennel!
The Case Altered, ii. 2.—Ben Jonson.
“Any hote spices?”
“I have peper, pionies,” quod she, “and a pound garlike
A ferdyng worth of fenel-seed for fastyng dayes.”
Piers Plowman.
For any south wind’s calling, for any magic rain.
The Faun to his Shadow.—N. Hopper.
“Sow Fennel, sow Sorrow.”—Proverb.
Few realise from how high an estate fennel has fallen. In Shakespeare’s time we have the plainest evidence that it was the recognised emblem of flattery. Ben Jonson’s allusion is almost as pointed as Robinson’s. It is said that Ophelia’s flowers were all chosen for their significance, so, perhaps, it was not by accident that she offers fennel to her brother, in whose ears the cry must have been still ringing,
“Choose we; Laertes shall be king!”
with the echo:—
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!’”
Nor was it only in our own land that Fennel had this significance, for Canon Ellacombe quotes an Italian saying: “Dare Finocchio” (to give fennel), meaning “to flatter.” As to the reason that fennel should be connected with sorrow, the clue is lost, but the proverb is said still to live in New England. The conversation which takes place in “Piers Plowman,” between a priest and a poor woman, illustrates a use to which fennel was put in earlier days. The poor got it, Miss Amherst says, “to relieve the pangs of hunger on fasting days.” But it was by no means despised by the rich, for “As much as eight and a half pounds of Fennel seed was bought for the King’s Household (Edward I., 1281) for one month’s supply.” She quotes from the Wardrobe Accounts. Our use either of Common Fennel, or Sweet Fennel, or Finocchio is so limited that the practice of Parkinson’s contemporaries shall be quoted. “Fenell is of great use to trim up and strowe upon fish, as also to boyle or put among fish of divers sorts, Cowcumbers pickled and other fruits, etc. The rootes are used with Parsley rootes to be boyled in broths. The seed is much used to put in Pippin pies and divers others such baked fruits, as also into bread, to give it the better relish. The Sweet Cardus Fenell being sent by Sir Henry Wotton to John Tradescante had likewise a large direction with it how to dress it, for they used to white it after it hath been transplanted for their uses, which by reason of sweetnesse by nature, and the tendernesse by art, causeth it to be more delightfull to the taste.” “Cardus Fenell” must have been Finocchio.
Goat’s Beard (Tragopogon pratensis).When from his high meridian tower,
The sun looks down in majesty,
What time about the grassy lea
The Goat’s Beard, prompt his rise to hail
With broad expanded disk, in veil
Close mantling wraps his yellow head,
And goes, as peasants say, to bed.
Bp. Mant.
The habits of Goat’s Beard, or as it is often called, John-go-to-bed-at-noon, are indicated by the latter name. It is less known as Joseph’s Flower, which Mr Friend[24] says “seems to owe its origin to pictures in which the husband of Mary is represented as a long-bearded old man,” but Gerarde gives the Low-Dutch name of his time, “Josephe’s Bloemen,” and says “when these flowers be come to their full maturity and ripeness, they grow into a downy blow-ball, like those of the Dandelion, which is carried away by the winde.” Evelyn praises it, and is indignant with the cunning of the seed-sellers. “Of late they have Italianiz’d the name, and now generally call it Salsifex... to disguise it, being a very common field herb, growing in most parts of England, would have it thought (with many others) an Exotick.” He does not give the full Latin name, so one cannot tell whether it is our Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) that he means, or T. pratensis, the variety once more generally cultivated. The latter seems the likeliest, as its yellow flowers are far more common than the purple ones of salsify. T. porrifolius is extremely rare in a wild state, but T. pratensis grows in “medows and fertil pastures in most parts of England.” T. pratensis is never cultivated now, and “Salsify” applies exclusively to Purple Goat’s Beard (T. porrifolium). The old herbalists praised it very highly.
[24] “Flowers and Flower-lore.”
Horse-Radish (Cochlearia Armoracia).Dr Fernie translates its botanical name, Cochlearia, from the shape of the leaves, which resemble, he says, an old-fashioned spoon; ar, near; mor, the sea, from its favourite locality. “For the most part it is planted in gardens... yet have I found it wilde in Sundrie places... in the field next unto a farme house leading to King’s land, where my very good friend Master Bredwell, practitioner in Phisick, a learned and diligent searcher of Samples, and Master William Martin, one of the fellowship of Barbers and Chirugians, my deere and loving friend, in company with him found it and gave me knowledge of the plant, where it flourisheth to this day.... Divers think that this Horse-Radish is an enemie to Vines, and that the hatred between them is so greate, that if the roots hereof be planted neare to the Vine, it bendeth backward from it, as not willing to have fellowship with it.... Old writers ascribe this enmitie to the vine and Brassica, our Colewortes.” Both he and Parkinson think, that in transferring the “enmitie” from the cabbage to the horse-radish, the “Ancients” have been mistranslated. The Dutch called it Merretich; the French, Grand Raifort; the English, locally, Red Cole. Evelyn calls it an “excellent, universal Condiment,” and says that first steeped in water, then grated and tempered with vinegar, in which a little sugar has been dissolved, it supplies “Mustard to the Sallet, and serving likewise for any Dish besides.”
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis).Here is my wreath bestowing.
Muses Elysium.—Drayton.
Iago. “Our bodies are our gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme... why the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.” Othello, i. 3.
Parkinson opens his “Theatre of Plants” with the words: “From a Paradise of pleasant Flowers, I am fallen (Adam like) to a world of Profitable Herbs and Plants... and first of the Hisopes.... Among other uses, the golden hyssop was of so pleasant a colour, that it provoked every gentlewoman to wear them in their heads and on their arms with as much delight as many fine flowers can give.” It is a hardy, evergreen shrub, with a strong aromatic odour. The flowers are blue, and appear more or less from June till October. The Ussopos of Dioscorides was named from azob, a holy herb, because it was used for cleansing sacred places, and this is interesting when one thinks of Scriptural allusions to the plant, although the hyssop of the Bible is most probably not our hyssop. The identity of that plant has occasioned much divergence of opinion, and a decision, beyond reach of criticism, has not yet been reached. Mazes were sometimes planted with “Marjoram and such like, or Isope and Time. It may eyther be sette with Isope and Time or with Winter Savory and Time, for these endure
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