All About Thyme: July 2024
Finding a little more green in your life
July’s Special Days: A Potpourri of Celebrations
Herb of the Year for 2024. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). Selected by the International Herb Association
Flower of the Month for July. Larkspur: In the Victorian language of flowers, each blossom color has a different symbolic meaning: pink suggests fickleness, white a happy nature, purple a first love.
July is National Blueberry Month, National Ice Cream Month
Week 1
July 1. Canada Day, celebrating the Canadian Confederation. Several recent surveys report that many Canadians recognize poutine (a dish of disputed origins involving French fries, gravy, and cheese curds) as a “national dish.”
July 4. A day to celebrate America and the spirit of inclusiveness that makes us what we are as a nation. Happy birthday to us. All of us!
Week 2
July 9. National Sugar Cookie Day.
July 14. Bastille Day, the national French holiday.
Week 3
July 15. St. Swithin’s Day. Blessings on apples. Is it raining where you are?
July 17. National Peach Ice Cream Day. But climate change threatens Georgia’s best.
Week 4
July 23. Sun moves into Leo, its own sign. Herbs traditionally associated with Leo include rosemary, mistletoe, hawthorn, St. John’s wort.
July 24. Nestle introduced Nescafe instant coffee on this day in 1938. And yes, of course coffee is an herb. (I know you know that.)
July 28. Beatrix Potter—the plucky heroine of the Cottage Tales series—was born on this day in 1866. Happy birthday, Miss Potter!
Week 5
July 29. St. Martha's Day. The patron saint of homemakers and cooks, St. Martha stopped peeling potatoes long enough to put out a dragon's fire. (Do not try this at home!)
July 30. National Avocado Day
Sweet Liberty Teas
Your Fourth of July picnic table will probably feature a pitcher of iced tea, brewed from a handful of tea bags or a few spoonsful of loose tea.
But for the people who lived during the American Revolution, China tea, including their favorites Bohea and Green Hyson, was not on the menu. The whole affair had, after all, begun with the Boston Tea Party, and one of the patriots’ earliest acts was to renounce their cherished imported (and taxed) tea in favor of herbs grown in the garden or gathered from local fields and woods. These native teas were celebrated in a ballad that encouraged everyone to “throw aside” all those imported teas, with a clever play on the word “duty.”
Ah yes, plants are political—in ways you may never have imagined!
Throw aside your Bohea and your Green Hyson Tea,
And all things with a new fashion duty;
Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,
For there’ll soon be enough here to suit ye;
Then do without fear, and to all you’ll appear
Fair, charming, true, lovely and clever;
Though the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish,
And love you much stronger than ever.
Labrador Tea
The Labrador tea worth singing about was brewed from a local shrub, Rhododendron groenlandicum (formerly called Ledum groenlandicum). The plant was used medicinally by Native Americans, who shared their knowledge about it with the colonists. In 1768, the Boston Gazette reported that the tea had been poured for a “circle of ladies and gentlemen who pronounced it nearly, if not quite, equal in flavor to genuine Bohea tea.” The editor added, “If we have the plant, nothing is wanted but the process of curing it into tea of our own manufacture.” Labrador teas were a household affair, and every housewife had her own recipe. Most included rose hips, mint, and wild ginger leaves.
Sassafras Tea, and other Tree Teas
This flavorful tea (the original taste of “root beer”) was brewed long before and after the Boston Tea Party, for it was thought to be both delicious and health-giving. And since the sassafras tree was an all-American native, it was on everybody’s list of politically-correct tea plants. Other trees or shrubs that were frequently used as beverage teas during the Revolution included sweet gum, willow, rose, raspberry, and sumac.
Herbal Teas
Catnip and pennyroyal were easy choices, along with various mints, bergamot, lemon balm, verbena, rosemary, thyme, sage, and wintergreen. Blossoms went into the teapot, as well: elder, red clover, violet, goldenrod, linden. Rosehips, fennel, and dill seeds were also included. Every family had its personal patriotic favorites.
Your Own Liberty Tea
Celebrate the Fourth with a pitcher of Liberty Tea. Pour 10 cups boiling water over these slightly-bruised fresh herbs: 5 sprigs spearmint, 3 sprigs apple mint, 2 sprigs red bee-balm flowers, 2 sprigs lemon balm, 1 sprig peppermint. Steep 15 minutes. Serve iced. If you don’t have these herbs, choose others. Our revolutionary foremothers would applaud your experiment.
July’s To-Do List
For July 4th, make a cake with its own baked-in punch line: a Red-White-&-Blue Poke Cake. But first, check out the wiggly history of the classic poke cake.
All the world loves a cookie! Observe Sugar Cookie Day by baking some of China Bayles' famous curry and cardamom sugar cookies, re-posted on the Spice House website.
If you're French, celebrate Bastille Day. You're not French? Celebrate anyway: bake a classic Quiche Lorraine. Bon appetit!
Instant coffee has been around longer than you think. It may not be your favorite choice of this herbal beverage, but you can make it a little more tasty. Try a couple of teaspoons of one of these herbal mixes in a mug of hot water.
Start with a basic mix of 2/3 cup instant coffee and 2/3 cup sugar.
For a mint-flavored mocha, add 1 teaspoon dried mint leaves (powdered) and 2/3 cup non-dairy creamer.
For an orange-mocha treat, add 1¼ teaspoon crushed dried crushed orange peel, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, and a pinch of cloves.
To celebrate Miss Potter’s birthday, read one of the books in my Cottage Tales series about her village life and treat yourself to some of her gingersnaps. You’ll find the recipe at the bottom of the page for The Tale of Hill Top Farm.
St. Swithin is the patron saint of apple growers, so it's traditional to celebrate his day (rain or no rain), with an apple cake. Here's an easy recipe, with the full story of Swithin's magical weather-forecasting skill.
Avocados have been on the menu for eons. Also called "alligator pears," they were gathered and eaten in Mexico as early as 8000 BCE, and grown in orchards by 3000 BCE. For a bushel of avocado recipes, go here And yes, the avocado is an herb. To learn about its medicinal uses, go here.
On Saint Martha’s Day, discover the connection between this intrepid woman, her docile dragon, and the first edition of Irma Rombauer’s enormously popular cookbook, The Joy of Cooking. (Hint, below: That's Martha/Irma on the cover of the 1931 self-published edition—broom in one hand and handbag in the other, taming her dragon of kitchen chores and (maybe) dirty dishes.
Avocados have been on the menu for eons. Also called "alligator pears," they were gathered and eaten in Mexico as early as 8000 BCE, and grown in orchards by 3000 BCE. For a bushel of avocado recipes, go here To learn about the avacado’s medicinal uses, go here.
Thanks for reading, friends! I’d appreciate it if you’d ask your favorite librarian to put you on the waiting list for the new China Bayles mystery, Forget Me Never. Available in print, digital, audio.
As we are settling back down after a truly stressful week, I'm reminded that some herbs will be useful to us over the next few weeks, starting with comfrey. I'll have to research what else to serve up to my wife, who managed to break both her elbow and her hip (femur only, fortunately) on Monday evening. After 4 days in the hospital, she has pins in the femur and a splint on the arm, a special attachment on our new walker to allow her to use it with the broken elbow, and in-home PT starting later today. She's managing extremely well for a woman of 78.
One of the cats contributed to the chaos by developing a urinary tract infection. She spent a day at the vet but added three medications to the daily cat medication routine. And she's also well on the way to recovery.
Meanwhile, I'm leaving for a 9-day trip on Saturday and we need to have more helpers lined up before I get on the train. I'm not the best at organization and coordination, nor at asking for help. I asked my Threshold Choir chapter members to send healing to my wife and calming energy to me. I will be asking neighbors for more concrete stuff.
I'd like to go see what's left in the strawberry patch after a week of neglect, but don't want to leave the house for longer than 5 or 10 minutes at a time right now. Hoping you all have calmer waters in your life.
After reading this July post, I like July even more! With days for blueberries, ice cream, sugar cookies, apples and peaches it sounds so heavenly! Throw in some ginger snaps and avocados and it sounds perfect to me.
Remembering The Joy of Cooking. I was a next to broke barmaid living in quaint little LaConner, Wa. I was in the habit of stopping by The Bookery our wonderful little bookstore on my way to work where one could catch-up on all of the news of the day and local gossip. While there I also often looked up recipes in The Joy of Cooking. So-much-so that when The Bookery closed some years later the owner (coincidently named Martha) kindly gifted the shelf copy to me! Over the years I have read it stem to stern. I still can sit down with it and a cup of tea for a happy read. Perfect for July reading!