On Food and Cooking

liqueur whose main ingredient is parts of
the wormwood plant, Artemisia
absinthium. Wormwood has a harsh, bitter
flavor and carries an aromatic compound,
thujone, that in high doses is toxic not only
to intestinal parasites and insects — hence
the plant’s name — but also to the human
nervous system, muscles, and kidneys.
Absinthe was hugely popular in late 19th-
century France, and l’heure verte, “the
green hour” of the afternoon when people
dripped water through a sugar cube into the
absinthe and caused it to cloud up, was
depicted by a number of Impressionist
painters and by the young Picasso.
Absinthe developed a reputation for
inducing convulsions and insanity, and was
therefore outlawed in many countries
around 1910, and replaced by simpler
anise-flavored spirits. Whatever toxicity
wormwood had for the heavy drinker was
probably exacerbated by absinthe’s high