The Salad.
Here curling sorrel that again
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).