People email me with questions they would like to see me write about once in a while. The other day I got one from an intern working on transcriptions who was confused by what she was reading in the manuscript receipts. She had seen a modern herb shop with its rows and rows of dried herbs, and it wasn’t lining up with what she was reading.
I have a lot to say about this, but I will try to keep myself under control. I once dove down a rabbit hole in which I tried to discover the historical answer to how to best dry plants. What I discovered is that this debate is centuries old as you can see here in this statement.
Herbs are to be gathered when they are fullest of juyce, before they run up to seed; and if you gather them in a hot sunshine day, they will not be so subject to putrifie; the best way to dry them, is in the sun, according to Dr. REASON, though not according to Dr. TRADITION: Such Herbs as remain green all the year, or are very full of juyce, it were a folly to dry at all, but gather them only for present ufe, as Houseleek, Scurvy-grasse, &c[1].
What Culpeper is saying here is that it is not traditional practice to dry herbs in the sun, but he thinks it is more reasonable to do so. Also since he lives in the very mild climate of England, some plants could be harvested most of the year.
As much as it pains me to do so I am going to have to side with the College and disagree vehemently. I think that Dr. Tradition knew what he was doing. Aromatic plants that are dried in the light and the heat of the sun lose a lot of their volatile ingredients to evaporation. Other leafy greens often lose the vibrant green color that I can achieve other ways. My friend jim has some ideas about cutting the leaf perpendicular to the stem, but I am not all about that life, especially as I don’t smoke anything anymore.
I have experimented with drying plant material countless ways over the decades. I have had my best luck hanging plants in paper bags to minimize dust accumulation and hanging them near an air conditioning vent, which is certainly not a historical practice.
The cool, dry air really preserves the color of the plant when drying. It’s so nice, I have the shelf in my workroom positioned over a vent. Note though that I am just talking about drying the aerial parts of the plant here. I use a dehydrator at the lowest setting to dry tough materials like roots.
As I work towards a practice more grounded in my heritage, I really am stepping back from drying plants. We didn’t really do a lot of it when I was growing up. That’s one of those things I thought my people had wrong but I am beginning to question that.
I also think saying this is going to make some of my herbal colleagues crabby, so I am going to throw out several citations to make my case. It’s a lot easier to have this conversation with people who are looking at the primary sources, so you folks will have to forgive me for going overboard with this.
I already knew that Culpeper is quite outspoken in his opposition to using dried plants for distillation saying, “And sure none in Bedlam are so mad as to go about to distil simple water out of dry things. [2] His instructions for making a hydrosol would be impossible with dried plants.
When I began researching handwritten manuscripts, I began to see that it wasn’t just a “him” thing. Many of our lady experimenters had similar ideas. Many of their receipts call for fresh plants and some specifically tell you to juice the leaves in the summer and the roots in the winter. The suggestions come up consistently over the course of a hundred years or so.
An other for the same: [staunching bleeding] Take the croppes of redd nettells in sumer, & in winter the rootes of them with salt, & wette a tente in it & put it in the nostrells or lay it to the wounde.[4]
Dorothy Shriley mentions using either the fresh green leaf of the herbs or the roots in a receipt she credits to a Mrs. Stephens saying, “When there are not greens take the same Quantities of Roots; Cut the Herbs or Roots, slice the Balls, and Boyle them in two Quarts of soft water Half an Hour~then straine it off and sweeten it with Honey.”
In Elizabeth Grey’s work, she suggests obtaining juice from roots in the winter. “half a handful of Daisie leaves, and in winter the roots.”[5]
Althea Talbot’s Natura exenterata has a few entries like this also like in this syrup for wounded folks. “Take Tormentil [Potentilla erecta], Egino [Pennyroyal] and Dictamnum [Dittany]; in Summer the leaves, in Winter the roots, and a little red Mints; seeth them in a little Beer or Ale together.[6]
In Lady Sedley’s directions for making Aqua Mirabilis she mentions “you may make it in winter with the Juice of the Rootes.[7]
You even stumble across receipts, like this one, that kind of resemble crude percolations that use fresh plants.
A good preservative against the plague or pestillence
Take a handful of Sage of vertue, a handful of Herbagrace, a handful of Elder leaves, stamp them in a Mortar, and strain them through a linen cloth with a quart of White-wine, and a quantity of White wine-vinegar.
W.J. gent A collection of seven and fifty approved receipts good against the plague 1665
I could go on, but you get the picture. Given the frequency this comes up along with my observations about decoctions and the many receipts for green salves, I really question how often people dried green leafy material for winter use.
Obviously, it was done. Lady Sedley mentions that certain roots “difficult to be had in winter may be gathered in due season, and being dryed and powdered may be given.” In Elizabeth Grey’s work, she suggests seeds as a winter alternative. “in Winter if the Hearbs be not to be had, the Seeds will serve” Many receipts simply called for seeds.
If you were to hop in a time machine and observe, I believe that you would find that people worked more with fresh herbs. I believe that the use of dried herbs in the materia medica is a consequence of industrialization and commodification that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Juicing Herbs
The receipts are not always clear about how to obtain the juice aside from saying to pound them. In the Irish Materia Medica transcribed by Tadhg Ó Cuinn in 1415, you see recommendations for pounding plants with various substances such as honey and ox gall, and then squeezing out the juice, which is the way I learned it. It is really not all that different than the way we juice fruit.
Since I live in the modern world where I have safer water, I blend plants with a little water to juice them because I am not all about the pounding and stamping life. I jokingly call my immersion blender and my food processor “the help.”
How I Juice Herbs
- Shred leaves from tough fibrous stems; peel and pith the roots.
- Chop your plant material.
- Put the chopped plant material in your food processor or blender.
- For each 3 cups of plant material, put in 1/3 cup water.
- Blend until herbs are liquified.
- Sometimes if I am working with a tough herb or a fibrous root, I will bring this mixture to a simmer before I move on.
- Strain your cooled mixture through butter muslin and end by twisting the fabric so it squeezes out as much liquid as possible.
There were several ways they preserved these juices. Sometimes they just boiled fruit juice down until it became “the thickness of Honey.” These “robs” or sapas as Culpeper names them,[8] had been used as a syrup for preserving fruit since antiquity. The Romans named them according to how long they were cooked. They were the most accessible form of preservation for the poor because they didn’t require additional ingredients. Barley malt syrup, honey, and eventually sugar were used to make syrups, cordials, and homemade wines.
As I mentioned above the juice extracted from fresh plants was also distilled to make hydrosols. Distillation also wasn’t something people wealthy enough to own alembics did. There are all sorts of tricks for making simple waters if you don’t have an alembic. I mentioned some of them a while ago in a post on making distillates.
A manuscript attributed to Roger Bacon, recommended to people who couldn’t afford an alembic a process of “sweating waters” from your flowers by placing them in a jar, sealing it closed, and then burying it in the “bank of the sea” during the hottest weather.[9] Sometimes you see people recommend dung piles as heat sources for this process.
The point is that because of the limited understanding twentieth-century historians had of this era, they assumed that people were drying herbs for long-term use because that’s the only thing that made sense to them given what they saw in modern herb stores.
Now we have access to more primary sources, and you can see that the items they sold at early modern apothecary shops were very different than modern herb shops. We also know more about the simplers selling fresh plants from their Colebaskets at the markets.
The idea of using a lot of dried leafy greens and flowers does not hold up in primary source literature that is more widely available to us now. Drying plants became more popular when the push for standardization in medicines led to the wider use of hydroethanolic extracts. I am slowly moving toward that era, so maybe I will be able to pinpoint it someday.
[1] Culpeper, Nicholas. Pharmacopoeia Londinensis: A Physicall Directory, or A Translation of the London Dispensatory Made by the Colledge of Physicians in London. London, England: Printed for Peter Cole and are to be sold at his shop, 1649.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Hertford, Lady Katherine Seymour. ‘UPenn Ms. Codex 823: Commonplace Book of Lady Katherine Grey’. [manuscript]. England, 1567. Ms Codex 823. Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.
[4] Catchmay, Lady Frances. ‘A Booke of Medicens’. Wellcome Collection, 1629. MS.184a. 17.
[5] Grey, Elizabeth. A Choice Manual of Rare and Select Secrets in Physick and Chyrurgery … Edited by Gent, W.J. 2nd ed. London, England: Printed by G.D. and are to be sold by William Shears, 1653.
[6] Talbot Aletheia. Natura Exenterata: … London, England: Printed for, and are to be sold by H. Twiford at his shop in Vine Court Middle Temple, G. Bedell at the Middel Temple gate Fleetstreet, and N. Ekins at the Gun neer the west-end of S. Pauls Church, 1655.
[7] Sedley, Lady Catherine. ‘The Lady Sedley, Her Receipt Book, 1686’, 1686. MS534. Royal College of Physicians.
[8] Culpeper, Pharmacopoeia Londinensis
[9] Bacon, Roger?. This Boke Doth Create All of the Beste Waters Artyfycialles and the Vertues and Properties of the Same, Moche Profytable for the Poore Sycke, Set Forth, by Syr Roger Becon Freere. [d 1294] Edited by Wyer, Robert. London, England: Imprynted by me Robert wyer, 1551
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