Thursday, May 24, 2012

Dragon's Wort or Why I Feel a Little Like Daenerys Targaryen Today or the Post in Which I Refer Heavily to the Game of Thrones

 'Tis highly cordial and friend to the head, heart and liver.'~ John Evelyn on Tarragon

If George R. R. Martin had included more herbs and plant medicines besides Milk of the Poppy in his book series A Song of Ice and Fire, he might have written about Dragon's Wort aka Tarragon aka Artemisia dracunculus.  Even the names sound right. A little Tarragon for the Targaryens, possibly to season their cod cakes.  Maybe a poultice a A. dracunculus could of saved Khal Drogo from his fatal wound.  And if Dany had just put a few drops of Dragon's Wort tincture into Drogo's water bowl, he might not a roasted and eaten that poor child.  Who can say? It can not be known.

What is known however, is that tarragon, French tarragon especially, is a lovely herb that is highly aromatic with a unique flavour much used for its culinary properties, especially in Eastern Europe and also as one of the four fines herbes of French Cooking.  A traditional use is to infuse the herb in vinegar, to which it will impart its flavour and aroma.

Last summer I was gifted a little bit of fresh French tarragon that I immediately put up into vinegar and then forgot about until it resurfaced recently in the move.

Now I think many of my readers know that I haven't used shampoo to wash my hair in years.  Instead I use baking soda with an apple cider vinegar rinse.  Today as I was about to get in the shower I realised that I was out of regular apple cider vinegar (ACV).  Then I spotted my jar of infused tarragon ACV and decided to give it a try. 

Guys!  It was heavenly.  Like borderline inappropriate Herbal Essences commercial heavenly.  I felt like Daenarys coming out of the Red Waste and stepping into the palatial dwellings of Xaro Xhoan Daxos.  Only, if the tarragon vinegar asked me to marry it, I totally would!

The sad things is, I only had a little of the infused ACV and I used most of it in the shower.  So now my project for the summer is to get my hands on some French tarragon plants and grow as much as I can and put it up in ACV.  Even if I have to cross the Narrow Sea to find some!

It is written.


 



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hilarious. How herbs could have changed the course of Westeros history!

I have just had a tarragon laced dinner, but I haven't tried it in vinegar. I will do so straight away! Thanks for the tip. :)

Amber said...

I picked up three plants at the farmer's market on Saturday!!