Meadowsweet. Filipendula ulmaria. Meadowsweet, along with water-mint and vervain, is a herb considered sacred by druids. Back in the day, it was used as a strewing herb and to flavour mead. It is apparently bad luck to bring it into the house as it may induce a sleep from which the sleeper cannot wake. No such qualms in the Auvergne.
Angelica. Angelica archangelica. Possessed of a most beautiful botanical name and big dramatic flowers, angelica is what the green stuff that sometimes comes with mixed dried fruit is supposed to approximate.
Stinging nettle. Urtica dioica. There is nought that the nettle cannot fix. Sting they do, but they are overwhelmingly wholesome. Nettles are good for your blood because they contain iron, histamine, formic acid, and silicic acid and apparently improve circulation and purify the system, nettles are good for rheumatism and sciatica, nettles lower blood sugar and blood pressure. – to use for cooking when they are young shoots –ie in spring and early summer. The Scots and Irish peasants who, according to my book, subsisted on a broth called Brotchan Neanntog made of oatmeal, nettles, water and salt (mmm) would have had some important dietary requirements satisfied. Although nettles perform well as a tasty lead in the jelly, I cannot say whether a diet heavily reliant on the nettle would be delectable.
Mint. Plain old mint. Mentha ordinairia. Here’s a factoid about mint: it was named after a nymph named Minthe. According to Ovid (who else would be the source of such a tale), Minthe tempted that shady character Pluto and was metamorphosed into a herb by his jealous wife, Prosperine. Remedies for marital discord aren’t what they used to be.
The leaves, blithely plucked in the morning, were steeped and soaked like this, a cooking process that an airy-fairy five year old would appreciate. The liquid was strained and weighed and sugared and cooked and cooked and set with agar and voila! Gêlée aux feuilles de ruisseau!
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