As we pivot over the summer solstice and wait in eager anticipation for clear skies and rising mercury (after 5pm and at the weekend), all things in the plant kingdom have been growing apace. The elder is finally in bloom, apples are swelling with remarkable speed, and ephemeral weeds are setting seed before you can say Cardamine hirsuta.
As you might be able to tell, I've been thinking a lot about plants. And one thing that's struck me is how we experience plants in lots of different ways. Admittedly, 90% of the time, we are probably oblivious to the green stuff around us, except for the fact it's simply there.
However, plants appeal to all our senses. In a horticultural setting, they are used not just for their aesthetic appeal, but also their feel, their scent, and their taste. All significant factors in a plant's perceived function, these characteristics have been key to how breeders have developed plants to meet human needs. Roses and sweet peas, for example, are constantly being bred to improve certain ornamental qualities such as colour and scent, but the most serious cultivation must surely be our crop plants. Modern wheat (Triticum spp.) is the product of careful selection and would be as unrecognisable to the Victorians as it would an Ancient Egyptian. Likewise through cultivation, we have Daucus carota, the familiar carrot, which is now far removed from its bitter, woody (and comparatively scrawny) wild relative.
Less changing, however, are our culinary herbs. Although sometimes overlooked ('Mixed Herbs' was a revelation to my parents in the late 90s), herbs are the real mainstay of kitchen gardens past and present. When you consider the paucity of vegetables before the introduction to Europe and cultivation of the foods like the flavoursome tomato and tender courgette, people must have been much more reliant on herbs to bring their food to life. The diversity of flavours you can achieve by combining herbs is really quite amazing, and there are many more plants you can grow as culinary herbs than you can get off the shelf in Tesco.
In an effort to investigate some of the less usual herbs and also make my small veg patch lower maintenance, I'm growing a range of plants, from Lovage (used for soups, apparently) to Lemonbalm, and Dill to Anise Hyssop.
However, I've also been inspired by the scents of the herb patch in another way. As a lazy sideline to my interest in homebrew, I've been thinking about how herbs could be combined to produce interesting alcoholic infusions, and I may just have invented the King of licors with my 'Botanist's Gin'. It's a delishously trendy hipster tiple with a 'tashe and a monocle to boot, and here are a few of the magic ingredients I used to give new body to the old spirit.
Agastache foeniculum (Anise Hyssop)
Attractive to bees and insects, the flowers of Anise Hyssop grow atop 50 cm stems, but I used the jagged, nettle-like leaves of Anise Hyssop for their delicate aniseed-fennel flavour.
Melissa officinalis (Lemonbalm)
A rampant thug of a herb, Lemonbalm will intoxicate you with its zesty citrus fragrance until you've accidentally let it take over your whole herb patch. It's a must-have for my Botanist's Gin.
A staple garnish for boiled potatoes, we mustn't forget that mint has a second home in a mojito. I needed the freshness of Mint to counterbalance the anise and citrus flavours above.
An excellent ground cover plant, Thyme reinforces the linalool of Lemonbalm and the pinene of Hyssop, but brings with it its own warm citrus aroma reminiscent of its Mediterranean homelands.
Ribes nigrum (Blackcurrant)
As fruits, Blackcurrants can be considered a herb in their own right, used sparingly to bring flavour to fruit desserts. However, Blackcurrant leaves also carry the sweet and slightly licorice note that I need to round off my Botanist's Gin.
I would tell you my method, but I feel this may be something best kept secret, written on a scrap of paper and left behind a dusty bottle of a delicious amber nectar from the mid-2010s...
Boy, I am so jealous of your veg patch. I'm in a very grow-your-own mood at the moment (I think I've been looking at too many WWII era 'Dig for Victory' style posters, and the propaganda has rubbed off on me). At the moment that extends as far as pots of basil, parsley and chive grown from seed on my windowsill, but I've been researching what will grow well a) in containers and b) indoors, and I have plans for hanging baskets of Alpine strawberries and a planter of swiss chard, as well as rosemary and sage and whatever other herbs. In theory I should also have mint and garlic chives sprouting at the moment, but in practice not so much.
ReplyDeletePatent the Botanist's Gin and sell it!
Anna xx