132 A GARDEN OF HERBS 



of thistle leaves " the late Morocco Ambassador and his 

 retinue were very partial." The leaves of the milk thistle 

 shorn of their prickles were not only an ordinary ingredient 

 in a salad, but they were also boiled, and Tryon says of them, 

 " they are very wholesome and exceed all other greens in 

 taste." They were also added to Pottages, baked in pies, 

 like artichoke bottoms, and fried. Culpepper advises one 

 to " cut off the prickles, unless you have a mind to choke 

 yourself," but in olden days both the scales and the roots 

 were eaten. The young stalks, peeled, were eaten both fresh 

 and boiled. 



MILK THISTLE STALKS. The young stalks about May being 

 peeled and soaked in water to extract the bitterness, boiled 

 or raw are a very wholesome sallet eaten with oyl, salt and 

 pepper. Boil them in water with *a little salt till they are 

 very soft and so let them dry to drain. They are eaten 

 with fresh butter melted not too thin and this a delicate and 

 wholesome dish. 



Other stalks of the same kind may be so treated as the 

 Bur being tender and disarmed of its prickles. John 

 Evelyn, Acetaria, 1699. 



THYME 



" I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 

 Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ; 

 Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine, 

 With sweet musk-roses and with Eglantine." 



Midsummer Night's Dream, II. ii. 



Thyme is, perhaps, the " cleanest " smelling herb, and 

 even in winter it seems to radiate the warmth and sunlight 

 it has absorbed during the hot summer months. Like fox- 

 glove and wood-sorrel, wild thyme has always been a 

 favourite with fairies ; and bees, too, love thyme. One old 

 herbalist tells us " the owners of Hives have a perfite fore- 

 sight and knowledge what the increase or yeelde of Honey 

 will bee everie yeare by the plentifull or small number of 

 flowers growing and appearing in the Thyme about the 

 summer solstice." 



