[Sca-cooks] Danelaw feast: peppermint

[Samrah]

otsisto <otsisto at socket.net> wrote:
[severly snipped]
 
>*Mints - you may want to exclude Peppermint as I believe that it is a late period hybrid. >Hybrid of marshmint and spearmint.
 
I don't believe there is a reason to particularly omit peppermint.  Until the 17th century all mints were used in the same way, with little attempt to differentiate between them.  This could be because if you plant two mints together, they hybridize themselves extremely easily, and it is in fact difficult to keep the varieties true unless you separate them severely (like in pots ;o)  I had lots of spear/pepper before I learned this.
 
>From Lawless, in the Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, ISBN 1-852030-311-5, p.131:
 
"Originally a cultivated hybrid between M. viridis [I don't believe this is spearmint, M. spicata.  I don't have the common name easily.] and M. acquatica, known to have been propagated from before the seventeenth century in England....
 
Mints have been cultivated since ancient times in China & Japan.  In Egypt evidence of a type of peppermint has been found in tombs dating from 1000 B.C...."
 
The above mentions the first record of deliberate propagation in England.  Trust me if those two mints were anywhere near each other, they could have hybridized themselves.  Mints love to do that sort of thing.  So, if peppermint works better in some of your dishes, I wouldn't hesitate.
Spearmint was used by the ancient Greeks in their bathwaters (same source, p. 132), and it can be easier to find commercially grown, so if it works for you charge on ahead.  I just don't want peppermint to get a bum reputation for being late period unnecessarily when it in all probability it has been around very early on.
 
Samrah, Mint Enthusiast
 

 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com