[Sca-cooks] Danelaw feast: peppermint

[otsisto]

What I was saying before I found different (see other email aka "a fool and
her mintality) is that peppermint may not have existed until late period and
therefore would not have been used in the middle ages.
Mentha Viridis = spearmint
http://medherb.com/cook/html/MENTHA_VIRIDIS.htm
Mentha aquatica = water mint = marsh mint = bergamot
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Mentha_citrata.html

I love mint. I can taste the difference between peppermint and spearmint and
usually other mints.
In mundane recipies I usually try to make a recipe that just says mint,
twice. One with peppermint and one with spearmint to see if there is a
difference in taste.

Cool Lamiaceae site.
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Lamiaceae.html

Lyse

-----Original Message-----
I don't believe there is a reason to particularly omit peppermint.

>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....

(snip)
 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