Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth

by Alice Morse Earle

This is a striking example of floral telepathy; you know what the Basil wishes, and the Basil knows and craves your affection, and repays your caress with her perfume and growth. It is a case of mutual attraction; and I beg the "Gentle Reader" never to pass a pot or plant of Basil without "stroaking" it; that it may grow and multiply and forever retain its relations with fair women, as a type of the purest, the most clinging, and grateful love.

One amusing use of Basil (as given in one of my daughter's old Herbals) was intended to check obesity:—

"To make that a Woman shall eat of Nothing that is set upon the Table:—Take a little green Basil, and when Men bring the Dishes to the Table put it underneath them that the Woman perceive it not; so Men say that she will eat of none of that which is in the Dish whereunder the Basil lieth."

I cannot understand why so sinister an association was given to a pot of Basil by Boccaccio, who makes the unhappy Isabella conceal the head of her murdered lover in a flower pot under a plant of Basil; for in Italy Basil is ever a plant of love, not of jealousy or crime. One of its common names is Bacia, Nicola—Kiss me, Nicholas. Peasant girls always place Basil in their hair when they go to meet their sweethearts, and an offered sprig of Basil is a love declaration. It is believed that Boccaccio obtained this tale from some tradition of ancient Greece, where Basil is a symbol of hatred and despair. The figure of poverty was there associated with a Basil plant as with rags. It had to be sown with abuse, with cursing and railing, else it would not flourish. In India its sanctity is above all other herbs. A pious Indian has at death a leaf of Basil placed in his bosom as his reward. The house surrounded by Basil is blessed, and all who cherish the plant are sure of heaven.

Mithridate was a favorite medicine of our Puritan ancestors; there were various elaborate compound rules for its manufacture, in which Rue always took a part. It was simple enough in the beginning, when King Mithridates invented it as an antidote against poison: twenty leaves of Rue pounded with two Figs, two dried Walnuts and a grain of salt; which receipt may be taken cum grano salis. Rue also entered into the composition of the famous "Vinegar of the Four Thieves." These four rascals, at the time of the Plague in Marseilles, invented this vinegar, and, protected by its power, entered infected houses and carried away property without taking the disease. Rue had innumerable virtues. Pliny says eighty-four remedies were made of it. It was of special use in case of venomous bites, and to counteract "Head-Ach" from over indulgence in wine, especially if a little Sage were added. It promoted love in man and diminished it in woman; it was good for the ear-ache, eye-ache, stomach-ache, leg-ache, back-ache; good for an ague, good for a surfeit; indeed, it would seem wise to make Rue a daily article of food and thus insure perpetual good health.

The scent of Rue seems never dying. A sprig of it was given me by a friend, and it chanced to lie for a single night on the sheets of paper upon which this chapter is written. The scent has never left them, and indeed the odor of Rue hangs literally around this whole book.

Summer Savory and Sweet Marjoram are rarely employed now in American cooking. They are still found in my kitchen, and are used in scant amount as a flavoring for stuffing of fowl. Many who taste and like the result know not the old-fashioned materials used to produce that flavor, and "of the younger sort" the names even are wholly unrecognized.

Sage is almost the only plant of the English kitchen garden which is ordinarily grown in America. I like its fresh grayness in the garden. In the days of our friend John Gerarde, the beloved old herbalist, there was no fixed botanical nomenclature; but he scarcely needed botanical terms, for he had a most felicitous and dextrous use of words. "Sage hath broad leaves, long, wrinkled, rough, and whitish, like in roughness to woollen cloth threadbare." What a description! it is far more vivid than the picture here shown. Sage has never lost its established place as a flavoring for the stuffing for ducks, geese, and for sausages; but its universal employment as a flavoring for Sage cheese is nearly obsolete. In my childhood home, we always had Sage cheese with other cheeses; it was believed to be an aid in digestion. I had forgotten its taste; and I must say I didn't like it when I ate it last summer, in New Hampshire.