The Herbs of the Mint Family
The Most Essential Ones
By Edward Behr
The Labiatae, the 3,500 members of the mint family, include, beside mint, a number of herbs that are fundamental to Western cooking — thyme, marjoram, oregano, basil, sage, rosemary, savory — along with other ancient herbs with less culinary value, such as lavender, hyssop, lemon thyme, horehound, betony, catnip, lemon balm, bee balm, germander, pennyroyal, and dittany of Crete. In nature, the Labiatae are centered on the Mediterranean basin, but about 135 are native to or naturalized in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada.
The Labiatae are named for the liplike opening of their flowers (labium is Latin for “lip”), although in the simple flowers of most herbs the lips are scarcely distinguishable. Aside from the clearly lipped flowers of sage, whose upper petal forms a hood, usually the only clue that a flower belongs to the mint family is a protruding lower petal, more tongue than lip. (Confusingly, the Labiatae have an alternative name, the Lamiaceae, after the lamiums, or dead nettles, which serve as the more or less model genus of the family.) Other characteristics are an aromatic scent, square stems, simple leaves in opposite pairs, and, among the culinary herbs, a flower color between blue and purple. Exceptions are the red flowers of bee balm and pineapple sage (which has a clear pineapple scent but little use in the kitchen). The flowers of the wild forms of some herbs appear in a range of colors from white to blue to purple, which in cultivars selected by gardeners have been augmented by a definite pink. In most of the labiate herbs, the flowers rise on stems, mounting in distinct pairs in either whorls or a dense column.
Each herb’s aroma comes from oil glands on the leaves, stems, and blossoms. You can almost see them, such as on the smooth leaves of basil, scattered among the visible pores that appear on both sides of each leaf. But the aroma and flavor of the blossoms is often better than that of the leaves, with higher notes, as you discover by tasting. Most blossoms are easily separated from the picked stems by rubbing backwards, although a sage flower must be plucked from the tough calyx that holds it.
Spearmint, peppermint, apple mint, and the 30 or more other mints — spread among a confusion of species — belong to the genus Mentha. Wild mints grow next to streams. In America, they’re escapees, descendants of the mint brought by the earliest European settlers. Most of the wild mints divide by scent into two camps, one more or less spearmint and the other clearly peppermint, usually with a purple-black stem. In the garden, you have to banish mint to a far corner or put it in a pot, so its aggressive runners won’t spread through your garden. I seldom cook with mint, and the last pot of it I had didn’t survive the winter. I used to grow an apple mint that a friend brought from Maine. Apple mint is in the spearmint camp, which is more useful than peppermint. Mint deserves more use than I give it. A pizza I once topped with oil-stewed onions and herbs, mostly mint, was approved by everyone who ate it, and no one guessed the herb.
Among the herbs, oregano is a rare exception whose flavor is better dried than fresh. And the dried whole branches of oregano blossoms imported from Greece are so superior to any I’ve grown that I admit I no longer bother. We tend to overlook savory in modern Western cooking, although in the regional cooking of certain places winter savory in particular has hallowed uses, such as with grilled fish, fava beans, or goat’s-milk cheeses. In my New England garden, the strong, direct taste of winter savory, a perennial, is more appealing than the weaker, vaguer one of annual summer savory. In Provence, the winter species is stronger and more peppery still, almost a different plant.
Some of the less well-known herbs also have an appeal as well as certain good uses. The first year I planted hyssop, it quickly became one of my favorite plants. Centuries ago, it was common in Western gardens, possibly as common as an onion. Hyssop is easy to grow, even in poor soil, though it prefers lime and a well-drained spot in the sun. It’s winter-hardy, little bothered by insects, loved by bees, and blooms over a relatively long period with erect stalks of blue flowers. When crushed, it has an attractive perfume. For centuries hyssop was a potherb, and it has long been used, in moderation, in salads. The modern neglect of hyssop results from its moderate bitterness, which becomes strong only during a dry spell. Used carefully — chopped in salad or briefly cooked in a sauce with other herbs — hyssop’s perfume is reinforced and the bitterness isn’t apparent. Rather than having a clean, clear taste, like mint, hyssop is muddy, resiny, complex, and evocative. Among the innumerable herbs and spices in the secret recipe for Chartreuse, hyssop is supposed to be a lead ingredient.
Anise hyssop is neither anise nor hyssop; it belongs to a separate genus in the mint family. (Anise itself is in the parsley family.) The marked licorice taste of anise hyssop has something in common with the sassafras of root beer. It’s a tender perennial that easily self-sows, and its flowers are some of the most prominent and long-lasting of any herb. In early September, my plants are thirty inches tall and covered with three-inch-high clusters of bright purple flowers, most of them actually colored calyxes whose petals have fallen. The main use I find for anise hyssop is an occasional addition to salads.
When you move to a new garden, taking at least some of your plants, it’s not hard to lose track of just what they are, but I believe the lavender I grow is Munstead Dwarf. It’s named for the home of the famed English gardener Gertrude Jekyll, who grew this cultivar. But she doesn’t mention lavender when she writes about her kitchen garden; for her it seems to have been an ornamental plant. A number of types of lavender exist, and climate surely makes a difference. The flavor of lavender, like most herbs, is supposedly improved by adding lime to the soil, to make it more like that around the Mediterranean.
Of the culinary labiates, only basil and summer savory are annuals, and they’re easily raised from seed. Thyme, winter savory, rosemary, and mint can also be raised from seed, but they’re slow or reluctant to germinate, so when I need them now I acquire plants. Plus with plants you can smell and taste first and be sure the flavor is strong and clear. Later, as the plants spread, you can divide them to increase them. Rosemary and the best-flavored marjoram are tender perennials, but the other major labiate herbs are hardy perennials, so that over the years your herb garden tends to become a collection of particularly well flavored and interesting varieties.
An herb garden can seem like a bee garden. Bees have their preference in flowers. They ignore red ones and are especially attracted to the blues and purples of the Labiatae. Bees that are concentrated on collecting nectar aren’t likely to sting. They seem more like companions.
Herbs are some of the easiest of plants to appreciate, yet it adds to your pleasure when you place them in the context of their wide family. Knowing which are related, you begin to study the uncommon ones more closely. And once you’re familiar with the family in the garden, you recognize members in the wild and understand nature better as a whole. ●
