HERBS USED IN THE PRESENT TIME 



33 



Mint. " Divers have held for true, that Cheeses will not 

 corrupt, if they be either rubbed over withe the juyce 

 or a decoction of Mints, or they laid among them." It 

 has been said, too, that an infusion of mint will prevent 

 the rapid curdling of millc. Being dried, mint was 

 much used to put with pennyroyal into puddings, and 

 also among " pease that are boyled for pottage." The 

 last is one of the few uses that survives. Parkinson 

 complains of all sorts of mints, that once planted in 

 a garden they are difficult to get rid of! 



Cat Mint, or Nep (Nepeta Catarid) is eaten in Tansies. 

 " According to Hoffman the root of the Cat Mint, if 

 chewed, will make the most gentle person fierce and 

 quarrelsome." ^ 



Pepper Mint is still retained, as is Spear Mint, in the 

 British Pharmacopoeia. " The leaves have an intensely 

 pungent aromatic taste resembling that of pepper, and 

 accompanied with a peculiar sensation of coldness " 

 (Thornton). 



Mustard {Sinapis). 



Bottom. Your name, I beseech you, sir? 



Aiustardseed. Mustardseed. 



Bottom, Good Master Mustardseed, I kno"w your patience well ; that 

 same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman 

 of your house : I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water 

 ere now. I desire your more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed. 



lAidsummer-l^ight' I Dream, iii. i. 



In 1664 Evelyn wrote that mustard is of " incomparable 

 effect to quicken and revive the Spirits, strengthening the 

 Memory and expelling Heaviness. ... In Italy, in making 

 Mustard, they mingle Lemon and Orange Peels with the 

 seeds." In England the best mustard came from Tewkes- 

 bury. It is a curious instance of the instability of 

 fashion that only twenty-four years before Evelyn made 



1 Folkard, 

 C 



