The elderberry is a shrub up to 7 m (23 ft high distributed throughout Europe, western Asia and North America. The white flowers, appearing in late spring - early summer, are followed by black fruits (nigra in Latin means black) - three-seeded berries, or rather drupes.
It is a biennial with large leaves and tall stems up to 1 m (3 ft) high, and a good plant for the herb garden because it is hardy and the leaves may be used throughout the winter when fresh herbs are scarce.
In the Middle Ages it was called `Oculus Christi', meaning the eye of Christ, and was added to vegetables and to meat dishes to give them a subtler taste. The famous French book Le menagier de Paris includes it among the herbs for flavouring vegetable omelettes and in a recipe for a green marinade for preserving fish. The seeds of clary were believed to counter 'eye weakness'.
In the Middle Ages roast goose called `Suce Madame' was prepared according to the following recipe: 'Take sage, parsley, hyssop and savory, quince and pears and stuff the goose, then close the cavity and sew it so the fat cannot escape, and roast it well'. Savory, however, had to be used sparingly for, as Mattioli wrote in his herbal, 'it incites to wantonness'. Mattioli derived its generic name from the satyrs of antiquity.
Their chief attraction in cookery is their lovely red colour which dissolves well in water. In former times elderberries were used to colour wine, chiefly port. They are added in small amounts to apple and pear compotes. In some north European countries they are used to make a fruit soup, eaten with baked apples and dumplings or toasted bread. They are also the principal ingredient of an old English ketchup called poulac.
The seeds are used whole in pickling gherkins and vegetables, in making marinades and like coriander to flavour sausage meat. In England young seedlings are added to green salads. They may be grown readily and rapidly at home from seeds sown in a dish covered with a piece of damp flannel, where they will produce seedlings ready for picking within a week. An annual herb reaching a height of 80 cm (32 in), it is readily distinguished from other mustards by the seeds (1) which arc contained in pods (siliques) terminated by a prominent beak (2,3). They arc straw-yellow in colour and are larger than other mustard seeds. Mustard has a brief growth period and ripening and harvesting depend on the time of sowing. It is harvested when the pods turn brownish-yellow and the seeds harden.
It is a biennial with large leaves and tall stems up to 1 m (3 ft) high, and a good plant for the herb garden because it is hardy and the leaves may be used throughout the winter when fresh herbs are scarce.
In the Middle Ages it was called `Oculus Christi', meaning the eye of Christ, and was added to vegetables and to meat dishes to give them a subtler taste. The famous French book Le menagier de Paris includes it among the herbs for flavouring vegetable omelettes and in a recipe for a green marinade for preserving fish. The seeds of clary were believed to counter 'eye weakness'.
In the Middle Ages roast goose called `Suce Madame' was prepared according to the following recipe: 'Take sage, parsley, hyssop and savory, quince and pears and stuff the goose, then close the cavity and sew it so the fat cannot escape, and roast it well'. Savory, however, had to be used sparingly for, as Mattioli wrote in his herbal, 'it incites to wantonness'. Mattioli derived its generic name from the satyrs of antiquity.
Their chief attraction in cookery is their lovely red colour which dissolves well in water. In former times elderberries were used to colour wine, chiefly port. They are added in small amounts to apple and pear compotes. In some north European countries they are used to make a fruit soup, eaten with baked apples and dumplings or toasted bread. They are also the principal ingredient of an old English ketchup called poulac.
The seeds are used whole in pickling gherkins and vegetables, in making marinades and like coriander to flavour sausage meat. In England young seedlings are added to green salads. They may be grown readily and rapidly at home from seeds sown in a dish covered with a piece of damp flannel, where they will produce seedlings ready for picking within a week. An annual herb reaching a height of 80 cm (32 in), it is readily distinguished from other mustards by the seeds (1) which arc contained in pods (siliques) terminated by a prominent beak (2,3). They arc straw-yellow in colour and are larger than other mustard seeds. Mustard has a brief growth period and ripening and harvesting depend on the time of sowing. It is harvested when the pods turn brownish-yellow and the seeds harden.
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