Wild bergamot ✦

Monarde

What it is

It was named for a smell borrowed from a fruit it has nothing to do with, the bergamot orange of Calabria, while this is a North American mint. Earl Grey has never contained a leaf of it, and the scent comes from thymol, the compound that makes thyme smell of thyme.

In the kitchen

Steep the leaf like a tea: 3 g per litre, four minutes off the boil. Simmered, the thymol turns medicinal — scatter the tubular florets whole at the end, since they carry the sweet part.

Goes with

Honey Strawberry Cream Tomato Lamb Blackcurrant

In season alongside

Chinotto Cilantro / Coriander Clary sage Hyssop Lavender flowers Lavender honey

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us