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).
The Daisy, Butter-flow’r and Endive blue.
Pastorals.—Gay.
There at no cost, on onions rank and red,
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.”