The Book of Herbs, Rosalind Northcote [best books to read for self development TXT] 📗
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Evelyn finds that “familiarly eaten alone with Oyl and Vinegar,” moderation should be used, but remarks that it is eminently moist and cooling “especially the golden,” and is “generally entertained in all our sallets. Some eate of it cold, after it has been boiled, which Dr Muffit would have in wine for nourishment.” Not a tempting dish, by the sound of it! The Purslanes are found from the Cape of Good Hope and South America to the “frozen regions of the North.” The root of one variety Leuisia redeviva, called Tobacco root (because it has the smell of tobacco when cooked), has great nutritive qualities. It is a native of North America, and is boiled and eaten by the Indians, and on long journeys it is of special use, “two or three ounces a day being quite sufficient for a man, even while undergoing great fatigue.” (Hogg.)
[48] Folkard.
Ram-ciches (Cicer Arietinum).Ram-ciches, Ramshead, or Chick Pea, gains the two first names from the curious shape of the seed pods which are “puffed up as it were with winde in which do lie two, or at the most three seeds, small towards the end, with one sharp corner, not much unlike to a Ram’s head.” Turner says that the plant is very ill for newe fallowed ground and that “it killeth all herbes and most and sounest of all other ground thistel,” which seems a loss one could survive. According to Parkinson the seeds are “boyled and stewed as the most dainty kind of Pease there are, by the Spaniards,” and he adds that in his own opinion, “they are of a very good relish and doe nourish much.” They are still eaten and appreciated by the country people in the south of France and Spain. Like Borage, Ram-ciches is particularly interesting to students of chemistry; for it is said that “in very hot weather the leaves sparkle with very small tears of a viscous and very limpid liquid, extremely acid, and which has been discovered to be oxalic acid in its pure state.”[49]
[49] Hogg.
Rampion (Campanula Rapunculus).The Rampions rare as that.
Polyolbion Song, xv.
De Gubernatis tells a most curious story from Calabria almost exactly that of Cupid and Psyche, but it begins by saying that the maiden, wandering alone in the fields, uprooted a rampion, and so discovered a stair-case leading to a palace in the depths of the earth.
One of Grimm’s fairy tales is called after the heroine, Rapunzel (Rampion), for she was given this plant’s name, and the whole plot hangs on Rampions being stolen from a magician’s garden. There is an Italian tradition that the possession of a rampion (as that of strawberries, cherries, or red shoes), would excite quarrels among children, which would sometimes go as far as “murder.” Even in a land of quick passions and southern blood, it can hardly be thought that this tradition had much ground to spring from, and I have not heard of it as existing further north. Parkinson says that the roots may be eaten as salad or “boyled and stewed with butter and oyle, and some blacke or long pepper cast on them.” The distilled water of the whole plant is excellent for the complexion, and “maketh the face very splendent.” Evelyn thought Rampions “much more nourishing” than Radishes, and they are said to have a “pleasant, nutty flavour”; in the winter the leaves as well as the roots make a nice salad. Even if it is not grown for use, it might well, with its graceful spires of purple bells, be put for ornament in shrubberies. Parkinson has said of Honesty, that “some eate the young rootes before they runne up to flower, as Rampions are eaten with vinegar and oyle”; but Evelyn warns us apropos of this very plant (with others) how cautiously the advice of the Ancient Authors should be taken by the sallet gatherer (Parkinson was probably quoting from the “Ancients” when he said this); “for however it may have been in their countries, in England Radix Lunaria is accounted among the deadly poisons!” One cannot help wondering if Parkinson or Gerarde ever knew those hardy individuals they allude to as “some,” and who tried the experiment!
Rocambole (Allium Scorodoprasum).Rocambole is a kind of garlic, but milder in flavour, and it is a native of Denmark. De la Quintinye seems to confuse it with Shallots (Allium ascalonium), as he writes of “Shallots or Rocamboles, otherwise Spanish Garlick.” Evelyn, speaking of Garlic as impossible—one cannot help feeling with a smothered wistfulness—says: “To be sure, ’tis not fit for Ladies’ Palates, nor those who court them, farther than to permit a light touch in the Dish, with a Clove thereof, much better supplied by the gentler Rocambole.”
Rocket (Eruca sativa).Various plants claim the name of Rocket, but it was Eruca sativa that was used as a salad herb. Parkinson explains the Italian name Ruchetta and Rucola Gentile thus: “This Rocket Gentle, so-called from the Italians, who by that title of Gentle understand anything that maketh one quicke and ready to jest, to play.” It is certainly not specially gentle in the ordinary sense of the words, for it has leaves “like those of Turneps, but not neere so great nor rough”; and if eaten alone, “it causeth head-ache and heateth too much.” It is, however, good in Salads of Lettuce, Purslane, “and such cold herbes,” and Turner observes that “some use the sede for sauce, the whiche that it may last the longer, they knede it with milke or vinegre, and make it into little cakes.” It has a strong peculiar smell, and is no longer used in England; though Loudon says that in some places on the Continent it makes “an agreeable addition to cresses and mustard in early spring.” Culpepper found that the common wild Rocket was hurtful used alone, as it has too much heat, but to “hot and choleric persons it is less harmful” (one would have imagined that it would have been the other way) and “for such we may say, a little doth but a little harm, for angry Mars rules them, and he sometimes will be rusty when he meets with fools.” This is altogether a dark saying, but it gives little encouragement to those who would make trial of Rocket.
London Rocket (Sisymbrium Irio).This plant gained its name in a singular way. It is said to have first appeared in London in the spring following the Great Fire, “when young Rockets were seen everywhere springing up among the ruins, where they increased so marvellously that in the summer the enormous crop crowding over the surface of London created the greatest astonishment and wonder.”[50]
[50] Folkard.
Saffron (Crocus sativus).Nor Roses oil from Naples, Capua,
Saffron confected in Cilicia.
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.
Br. Pastorals, Book I.
Winter’s Tale, iv. 2.
You set Saffron and there came up Wolf’s bane. (Saying to express an action which has an unexpected result.)
Saffron has been of great importance since the earliest days, and it is mentioned in a beautiful passage of the Song of Solomon. “Thy plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, Camphire with Spikenard, Spikenard and Saffron, Calamus and Cinnamon, with all trees of Frankincense, Myrrh and Aloes, with all the chief spices,” iv. 13, 14.
Canon Ellacombe says that the Arabic name, Al Zahafaran was the general name for all Croci, and extended to the Colchicums, which were called Meadow Saffrons. It is pointed out by Mr Friend that, further, the flower has given its name to a colour, and had given it in the days of Homer, and he remarks how much more exactly the expression “Saffron-robed” morning describes the particular tints seen sometimes before sunrise (or at sunset) than any other words can do. Saffron Walden in Essex, whose arms are given on page 101, and Saffron Hill in London (which once formed part of the Bishop of Ely’s garden), are also obviously named after it, and as is seen in the former case it has given arms to a borough. As to its introduction into England Hakluyt writes (1582): “It is reported at Saffron Walden that a pilgrim proposing to do good to his country, stole a head of Saffron, and hid the same in his Palmer’s Staffe, which he had made hollow before of purpose, and so he brought the root into this realme with venture of his life, for if he had been taken, by the law of the countrey from whence it came, he had died for the fact” (“English Voyages,” vol. ii.). Canon Ellacombe thinks that it was probably originally brought here in the days of the Romans, and found “in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the fourteenth century, ‘Hic Crocus, Anee Safryn,’ so that I think the plant must have been in cultivation in England at that time.” In the work of “Mayster Ion Gardener,” written about 1440, one of the eight parts into which it is divided is wholly devoted to a discourse, “Of the Kynde of Saferowne,” which shows that Saffron must have been a good deal considered in his day. The Charity Commission of 1481 mentions two Saffron-gardens; and in the churchwarden’s accounts at Saffron Walden, in the second year of Richard III.’s reign, there is an entry, “Payd to John Rede for pyking of V unc Saffroni, xii.” The town accounts of Cambridge show that in 1531 Saffron was grown there; and at Barnwell in the next parish the prior of Barnwell had ten acres.
Some old wills, too, throw some light on the subject. In the will of Alyce Sheyne of Sawstone, in 1527, “a rood of Saffron” is left to her son. In 1530 (1533?) John Rede, also of Sawstone, leaves his godson a “rood of Saffron in Church Field,” and William Hockison of Sawstone, bequeathed in 1531, “to Joan, my wife, a rood of Saffron, and to my maid, Marger, and my son, John, half an acre.” As may be easily inferred from these legacies, Saffron was very largely grown at Sawstone, and the two adjoining parishes, as well as at Saffron Walden. The first man to introduce it into Saffron Walden to be cultivated on a really large scale was Thomas Smith, Secretary of State
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