Indigenous to the Mediterranean, thyme can still be found growing wild in the high mountains and valleys, in barren rocky fields, sparse grasslands and heaths. Like most herbs with a long history of traditional use, this robust, tiny shrub has much to offer.
Thyme has always been an important part of Mediterranean cuisine and culture. The ancient Greeks are said to have bathed in it, used it to make liqueurs, and burnt it in their temples.
Indeed the herb derives its name from one of two Greek root words, either thuo meaning “to fumigate” or “perfume”, or thumus signifying “courage” or “strength”. Perhaps the Greeks intended the double entendre when they named it, as both derivatives seem historically well-deserved.
In ancient and medieval times, thyme was thought to invigorate and thus inspire courage. Roman soldiers bathed in water prepared with thyme to ready themselves for battle, and during the Middle Ages, the Crusaders received scarves from their wives or girlfriends embroidered with a sprig of thyme to inspire courage and lift the spirits.
The country folk of France, Spain and Italy have traditionally grazed goats and sheep on thyme to impart its flavour to the animals’ meat, and added the herb to their richer dishes to counteract the processes leading to gout.
There are several different scented varieties of thyme for culinary use, including caraway thyme, orange thyme and the lemon thymes. It is superb as a marinating herb and an essential ingredient in the bouquets garnis of French cuisine for flavouring stock.
If you have some thyme growing at home, you can cut small bundles of about four inches of stem and hang them up to dry. Only cut as much as you need as thyme is best used fresh and cooked as little as possible. For best flavour, harvest just before flowering.
If you don’t have thyme growing at home then, if not for yourself, plant some for the bees who value its nectar over all others. It is from thyme that bees make the renowned Mt Hymettus honey, regarded by Pliny the Elder as “the sweetest and most aromatic honey of all.”
Luke Hughes is a classical Western herbalist.
Title quote by Rudyard Kippling.
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