Catnip, Nepeta cataria, is a mint family member
said to be an import that went wild and now
flourishes everywhere. It grows about 2' tall.
The leaves are downy above and below, a little
larger than peppermint leaves. By the 1890's,
Ojibwe women were using it. It had a Native
name, Gajugensibug, and was said to be a good
tea to drink to bring down fevers, as well as
pleasant-tasting. Big JPEG original of this photo
from the Herb Research Foundation's images
database. Mentha piperata (peppermint) and
Mentha viridis (spearmint) are two other
imports -- both quite good and strong-flavored
-- that escaped to flourish in the wild.To use fresh mint in cooking, remove leaves from coarse stems, chop or crush.
Because the flavor oil is volatile and driven off by heat, it is best to add mint -- fresh
or dried -- near the end of cooking soups or stews. To make a fresh mint tea chop
and crush tender stems and leaves both, use about 1/2 cup packed for 4 cups of
boiling water. Don't boil the tea, pour boiling water over the leaves and steep for 5
minutes.To dry mint, remove leaves from stems; dry in shade for about 2 weeks. To make
a tea, use about 1 tablespoonful of crushed, dry leaves per cup of water. Pour
boiling water onto it, steep, don't boil. Mint tea does not reheat well. Mint teas can
be drunk with cream or sugar or honey, but perhaps the best "tea" use of mints is
to add flavor to other plant teas.To grow your own: chop a stem about 4" down from the head off clean slightly on
a slant. Place sprig of mint -- found or bought -- in a small jar of clean water in a
sunny window.( Almost all members of the mint family like sun.) In 2 weeks, there
will be a mass of roots. It's better to root them this way than to try to dig up found
plants with their old roots. Pot the mint plant and water well. To keep it bushy cut
it off often from the top branches, and use it in cooking most everything, or set the
cut tops aside to dry. Leaves (and stems) of all the mints can be gathered any time
during the summer; some feel the flavor is strongest when the plant is not in flower.
Fresh young spring shoots from the perennial roots can be cooked and served with
butter and salt. Mint leaves and tender springs can be mixed with any fresh salad
greens, and are used a lot in Middle Eastern cooking.Native Foods -- Herbal Teas -- mints
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/mint.html (3 of 4) [5/17/2004 11:47:57 AM]