Thomas Hill on sallet herbs

[bunnyjadwiga]

From Thomas Hill's Gardener's Labyrinth:

The Purslane is one of the Garden herbs, served first in Sallets, with Oyle, Vinegar, and a little Salt, as well at the mean, as rich mens Tables, yea this for a dainty dish with many served first at Table in the winter time, preserved...

So, purslane (yes we are talking about the fleshy weed) was served with oil, vinegar and salt, at all levels of society. It was also preserved or pickled to make a "dainty dish"

Spinach:

This plant aptest for the Lent time (for that the same is oftner or more common used in this season) . . . for that it is the first Pot-herb which is found in Gardens about the Lent time. . . This pot herb (after the tops cut off and thrown away) ought to be sodden without water, in that the same (the seething) yeildeth much moisture, for contented with the liquor, it refuseth any other broth added, so that this otherwise sodden, loseth the kindly and naturall juyce of the same, and besides too hastily drowned or overcome with the same. This being very tender after the seething, ought to be finely chopped with a woodden knife, ortherwise stamped and turned often in the beaten of it, which wrought up into round heaps, and fryed in the sweetest oile or butter, must be so prepared with a quantity of Verjuyce and Pepper bruised, that it may more delight the tast.

The Borage or Buglosse, or Longde-beefe serving for the pot, when the leaves are yet tender, and the flowers for Sallets. . .

Hill gives certain folk remedies designed to make Parsley grow "crisped in leaf" which suggest that the ruffled-leaf parsley was a known but little understood variant; he also cites a number of classical authors who speak of male and female varieties, the female having bigger stems and crisper leaves.

Comments

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I've eaten purslane. Particularly in Connecticut, where it was a fairly serious problem in our garden. Definitely not worth growing as a sallet herb, going by my experience there. Though perhaps the European cultivars are livelier and less spready....