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Herb of the Month

Harvesting Thyme: Thymus Vulgaris

At the end of summer, I like to visit my sister in Maine. In a park- like area, surrounded by mountains, she has a wonderful vegetable garden, including a flourishing culinary herb patch. The two of us like to cook together, and we have made some memorable meals out of herb harvests, as well as cutting big bundles to dry for winter use.

She pores over her cookbooks (of which she has the largest collection I have seen in anyone's home) and picks out something adventurous for us to try- - one of those dishes that has too many steps to do comfortably on your own. A couple of years ago, it was a pasta dish called "Taglierini, Zucchini, Lemon, Pine Nuts, and Herbs" from The Greens Cookbook. Ideally, you make your own pasta from flour, salt, egg, and olive oil--kneading them together, then running the dough through an Italian pasta maker. My sister handled this part of the recipe with the help of her amazing little pasta machine. My task was to prepare the vegetables- - and the herbs.

She was finished in time to help me cut the yellow peppers and homegrown zucchini into matchsticks, sliver the sun- dried tomatoes (presoaked in hot water) and the thin outer layer of the lemon rind, chop the whites of green onions, and find the olive oil and capers. But before any of this, she sent me out into the garden.

The recipe called for a half-cup of mixed fresh herbs (leaves and flowers only), but we decided to double that when we realized how much I'd picked. Outside, in the late afternoon sun, I think I went into an herb trance. Here they all were- - fragrant and in their prime- - crowding each other out of the garden. I gathered large handfuls of curly dark-green parsley and delicate small- leaved lemon thyme, as well as the slightly drier and gamier ordinary thyme. I took it kind of easy on the sage and rosemary, thinking they might be a little too pungent in large quantities, but I found some sage flowers to include. There was lots of oregano, also blooming, and chives. I even included a few stalks of mint and a little basil.

The herbs seemed to speak to me, helping me see how much of each I wanted in the blend. I went back inside with a glorious armload of nourishing leaves and flowers, pulled everything off the slightly woody stems, and chopped it all together roughly into a fragrant green heap, dotted with white and lavender flowers.

To assemble this pasta, you saute green onions and pine nuts and cook zucchini matchsticks for no more than one minute in boiling water. Combining these in a large bowl, you then add all the other ingredients- - lemon peel, capers, peppers, herbs- - cut up but uncooked, especially the chopped herbs. At the very end, when you're ready to serve, you add the hot (fresh) cooked pasta to this same bowl and toss it all together, letting the steam cook the vegetables. Then you bring it to the table- - to a chorus of ohs and aahs. A glorious dish with touches of gold and green, the rich crunchiness of pine nuts, the sharpness of lemon rind, and the subtle mingling of amazing herbs. To me this dish is the essence of harvest, mostly because my sister and I are following a tradition of working together that goes back to before our lifetimes when all women knew the healing properties of the foods they prepared.

Even the familiar "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" of European cuisine (and the song) are energetic healing agents in their own right. I've written about the first two in recent months and rosemary is coming up soon- - so this month it is thyme. Like sage, rosemary, basil, oregano and mint, thyme is a member of the Labiatae (mint) family, which has many naturally occurring and horticultural varieties, grown easily in poor, well- drained soil. Of all its relatives, thyme grows closest to the soil, forming a tangled mat or pillow of leaves some three inches high with tiny woody stems underneath. It blooms lavender or purple in the spring and is more easily started from cuttings or pieces of root than from seed.

There are many thymes- - several species and many horticultural varieties. Thymus serpyllum grows wild in northern Europe. This is an extremely small plant, which I have seen growing as the main greenery in a lawn that is very fragrant, especially when bruised by footsteps or a late summer game of touch football. Thymus vulgaris is the mediterranean species from which most garden varieties have been developed, and lemon thyme is one of these. Its leaves are wider and juicier (and usually mottled with a lighter green) than the more common varieties. I think it may be less harsh- tasting than the herb many cookbooks warn us against overusing.

Like other mint family members, thyme has the reputation of aiding digestion, most likely because, like the others, it stimulates production of enzymes in our digestive tracts. With rosemary, it is said to be useful at the onset of colds and the flu by promoting sweating and opening the sinuses. Herbalists may recommend teas and tinctures of thyme or rosemary for loosening phlegm and addressing acute sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, or even asthma. Thyme and rosemary are also known as infection- fighters- - used internally to stimulate the immune system and externally to help heal skin infections and promote tissue repair. My '20s encyclopedia describes the extraction of thymol or thyme camphor from the herb's oil. This extract was used as an antiseptic and antiparasitic before antibiotics came on the scene. Old herb books often refer to the medieval practice of burning or smudging thyme in sickrooms to prevent the spread of disease- - and during plague years, people carried thyme in pouches around their necks to sniff for protection.

In addition, both herbs are associated with clear thinking and mental energy. A tea of either (or a whiff of its essential oil) might be a good idea as you sit down to figure out a problem or write something important. A Palestinian friend recently served me a cup of thyme tea (made from a perfectly ordinary- looking teabag I had never seen in this country), which I found a really delicious and clarifying drink. One author says thyme is used to combat hangovers, and that is was the ritual substance most sought after in medieval Europe if one wanted to see fairies (perhaps why Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream tantalizes humans by knowing "a bank where the wild thyme grows.")

As for harvesting thyme and other leaf- herbs to dry for winter, ideally you'll cut them just as the plants burst into bloom, when their essential oils are most potent. But if you've waited longer, that's OK too. After morning dew has evaporated from the leaves, cut big armloads with long stems. Bring them inside and tie the stems in smallish bundles- - about half a dozen branches per bundle, not so many that air can't circulate. (Wash the herbs only if you have to- - for instance if there is actual dirt on the leaves.) You can then hang the bundles (upside down) to dry somewhere inside where air circulates well. The area should be free of dust and dampness, and out of direct sunlight. In brisk fall weather, the drying process won't take more than a week. (Speeding it up by using artificial heat, like an oven, apparently destroys some of the herbs' vitality.) When the bundles are fully dry, remove any woody stems and store the herbs (crushing the crisp leaves or not, as you wish). Apparently the essential oils last best if your storage vessel is made of colored rather than clear glass. Herbs lose their efficacy faster when exposed to light and heat.

Of course you have to be flexible in applying these directions. A big wet, leafy plant like basil needs to be hung in a smaller bundle than the short, curly stems of thyme, which can be spread out to dry on paper on a shelf or tabletop. As the seasons change, I hope you'll be drinking your own teas made from dried thyme and the other so- called culinary herbs to fortify yourself against colds and flu and to stimulate clear thinking. At the very least, I bet you'll find- - though it may not match my sister's taglierini- - that your cooking tastes better with your own dried herbs than with those that have been sitting on the shelf for a while.

Louise Dunlap teaches yoga and writing, and is working on a book called Writing for Social Change.