The Book of Herbs by Rosalind Northcote (christmas read aloud txt) 📕
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The seeds of parsley were sometimes put into cheese to flavour it, and Timbs (“Things not generally Known”) tells this anecdote: “Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley seeds at a bishop’s palace, and liked it so much that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle.”
In the edition of Tusser’s “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” edited by Mavor, it is noted, “Skim-milk cheese, however, might be advantageously mixed with seeds, as is the practice in Holland.” Though not strictly relevant, these lines taken by Mrs Milne-Home (“Stray Leaves from a Border-Garden”) from the family records of the Earls of Marchmont, must find place. They were written by a boy of eight or nine, on the occasion of his elder brother’s birthday.
Was dug my elder brother, Moore,
Had Papa dug me up before him,
So many now would not adore him,
But hang it! he’s but onely one
And if he trips off, I’m Sr John.
Horse-radish was treated here as a seasoning, but radish is counted among vegetables proper.
[30] Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare.
[31] Friend.
[32] Parkinson.
Sage (Salvia officinalis).That should man’s life sustaine,
For I do stil lie languishing
Continually in paine,
And shall doe still until I die,
Except thou favour show,
My paine and all my grievous smart,
Ful wel you do it know.
Handful of Pleasant Delights.
To spoyle the pleasures of the Paradise,
The wholesome saulge and lavender still gray.
Muiopotmos.—Spenser.
Sage is one of those sympathetic plants that feel the fortunes of their owners; and Mr Friend says that a Buckinghamshire farmer told him his recent personal experience. “At one time he was doing badly, and the Sage began to wither, but, as soon as the tide turned, the plant began to thrive again.” Most of the Continental names of the plant are like the botanical one of Salvia, from “Salvo,” to save or heal, and its high reputation in medicine lasted for ages. The Arabians valued it, and the medical school of Salerno summed up its surpassing merits in the line, Cur morietur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? (How can a man die who grows sage in his garden?) Perhaps this originated the English saying:—
Must eat Sage in May.
Parkinson mentions that it is “Much used of many in the month of May fasting,” with butter and parsley, and is “held of most” to conduce to health. “It healeth the pricking of the fishe called in Latine pastinaca marina, whych is like unto a flath, with venomous prickes, about his tayle. It maketh hayre blacke; it is good for woundis.”[33] The “Grete Herball” contains a remedy for Lethargy or Forgetfulness, which consists of making a decoction “of tutsan, of smalage and of sauge,” and bathing the back of the head with it.
Pepys notes that in a little churchyard between Gosport and Southampton the custom prevailed of sowing the graves with sage. This is rather curious, as it has never been one of the plants specially connected with death.
Evelyn sums up its “Noble Properties” thus: “In short ’tis a Plant endu’d with so many and wonderful Properties, as that the assiduous use of it is said to render Men Immortal. We cannot therefore but allow the tender Summities of the young Leaves, but principally the Flowers in our Sallet; yet so as not to domineer.... ’Tis credibly affirmed, that the Dutch for some time drove a very lucrative Trade with the dry’d Leves of what is called Sage of Vertue and Guernsey Sage.... Both the Chineses and Japaneses are great admirers of that sort of Sage, and so far prefer it to their own Tea... that for what Sage they purchase of the Dutch, they give triple the quantity of the choicest Tea in exchange.”
“Frytures” (fritters) of Sage are described as having place at banquets in the Middle Ages (Russell’s “Boke of Nurture”). Besides these other uses the seeds of sage like parsley seeds were used to flavour cheese. Gay refers to this:—
The hardening cheese she pressed,
and to “Sage cheese,” too, and Timbs says, “The practice of mixing sage and other herbs with cheese was common among the Romans.”
[33] Turner.
Savory (Satureia).With Savoury and some tansy.
Muses Elysium.
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
Winter’s Tale, iv. 4.
Fat Colwortes and comforting Perseline,
Cold Lettuce and refreshing Rosmarine.
Muiopotmos.
Savory, satureia, was once supposed to belong to the satyrs. “Mercury claims the dominion over this herb. Keep it dry by you all the year, if you love yourself and your ease, and it is a hundred pounds to a penny if you do not.” Culpepper follows this advice with a long list of ailments, for all of which this herb is an excellent remedy. Summer savory (S. hortensis) and winter savory (S. Montana) are the only kinds considered in England as a rule, though Gerarde further mentions “a stranger,” which, “because it groweth plentifully upon the rough cliffs of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Italie, called Saint Julian rocke,” is named after the saint, Satureia Sancti Juliani. In other countries summer savory used to be strewn upon the dishes as we strew parsley, and served with peas or beans; rice, wheat and sometimes the dried herb was “boyled among pease to make pottage.” Winter savory used to be dried and powdered and mixed with grated bread, “to breade their meate, be it fish or flesh, to give it a quicker rellish.” Here Parkinson breaks off to deliver a severe reproof to “this delicate age of ours, which is not pleased with anything almost that is not pleasant to the palate,” and therefore neglects many viands which would be of great benefit. Both savories are occasionally used more or less in the way he suggests, winter savory being the favourite. In Cotton’s sequel to the “Complete Angler,” a “handful of sliced horse-radish-root, with a handsome little faggot of rosemary, thyme and winter savoury” is recommended in the directions for “dressing a trout.” One of the virtues attributed to both savories by the old herbalists is still agreed to by some gardeners: “A shoot of it rubbed on wasp or bee stings instantly gives relief.”
Sorrel (Rumex).Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave.
Swinburne.
And sorrel, untorn by the dew-claw’d stag;
Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag.
Endymion.
The sorrel acid and the mallow sweet.
The Salad.
We use in hot diseases
The medicinable mallow here...
Muses Elysium.
Sorrel and mallow seem to have been associates anciently, perhaps because it was thought that the virtues of the one would counterbalance those of the other. “From May to August the meadows are often ruddy with the sorrel, the red leaves of which point out the graves of the Irish rebels who fell at Tara Hill in the ‘Ninety-eight,’ the local tradition asserting that the plants sprang from the patriots’ blood.”[34] The Spaniards used to call sorrel, Agrelles and Azeda, and the French Aigrette and Surelle. In England it used to be “eaten in manner of a Spinach tart or eaten as meate,” and the French and Dutch still do, I believe, and at anyrate did quite lately, use it as spinach. Sorrel was often added by them to herb-patience when that was used as a pot-herb, and was said to give it an excellent flavour. The same recipe has been tried and approved in England as well as (a little) sorrel cooked with turnip-tops or spinach; the former of these dishes is said to be good and the second certainly is. Evelyn thought that sorrel imparted “so grateful a quickeness to the salad that it should never be left out,” and De la Quintinye says that in France besides being mixed in salads it is generally used in Bouillons or thin Broths. Of the two kinds, Garden Sorrel, Rumex Acetosa, and French Sorrel, R. Scutatus, either may be used indifferently in cooking, though some people decidedly prefer the French kind. Mrs Roundell says that sorrel carefully prepared can be cooked in any of the ways recommended for spinach, but that it should be cooked as soon as it is picked, and if this is impossible must be revived in water before being cooked.
[34] Folkard.
THE LAVENDER WALK AT STRATHFIELDSAYE
Tarragon (Artemisia Dracunculus).“Tarragon is cherished in gardens.... Ruellius and such others have reported many strange tales hereof scarce worth the noting, saying that the seede of flaxe put into a radish roote or sea onion, and so set, doth bring forth this herbe Tarragon.” This idea was apparently still current though discredited by the less superstitious in Gerarde’s time. Parkinson mentions a great dispute between ancient herbalists as to the identity of the flower called Chysocoma by Dioscorides. After quoting various opinions and depreciating some of them he approves the decision of Molinaus that Tarragon was the plant. He describes it “in leaves... like unto the ordinary long-leafed Hisope... of the colour of Cyperus, of a taste not unpleasant which is somewhat austere with the sweetnesse.” It is a native of Siberia, but has long been cultivated in France, and the name is a corruption of the French Esdragon and means “Little Dragon.” Though no reason for this war-like title is obvious, the name is practically the same in several other countries. The leaves were good pickled, and it is altogether a fine aromatic herb for soups and salads. Vinegars for salads and sauce used often in earlier days to be “aromatized” by steeping in them rosemary, gilliflowers, barberries and so forth, but the only herb used for this purpose at the present time is tarragon. Tarragon vinegar can still be easily obtained. “The volatile essential oil of tarragon is chemically identical with that of anise” (Fernie).
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)......... Were as silent as ever old Timolus was
Listening to my sweet pipings.
Pan’s Music—Shelley.
It would flourish by night and by day,
O’er the wall came a lad, he took all that I had,
And stole my thyme away.
But fairer I wished to appear,
So I washed me in milk, and
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