Holiday Cooking – Bay Leaves

What could be homier than the fragrance of bay leaves wafting from the kitchen at Christmas? Bay leaves enhance broth and gravy, lace roast turkey and chicken, and add a rich flavor to stove top bread stuffing. A few bay leaves added to stew or soup provides a warm, pungent flavor.

Laurus nobilis (bay leaves) are used in marinades; and in bouquet garni (with parsley and thyme) to flavor bouillons, sauces and soups. Laurel belongs to the plant family Lauraceae, which includes the spices cinnamon and cassia. A native version, Umbellularia californica, grows in California and Oregon, and can also be used for cooking.

Botanical illustration of Laurus nobilis from Koehler's Medicinal Plants.
Published before 1923 and public domain in the United States.

According to J.O. Swahn, in The Lore of Spices, laurel originated in the Mediterranean (Greece and Syria). Its berries and leaves were included in the Roman cookbook Apicius in the first century A.D. The laurel was exported to northern Europe in the Middle Ages and used for healing, and by 1652 was included as a cooking spice in François-Pierre de la Varenne's cookbook, Le Cuisinier Français. He may have learned about it in Italy at the Medici court.

Laurel is eternally green, starts as a pyramidal bush, and grows into a tree up to 40 feet tall. Leaves are dark-green and glossy, with lighter undersides, lanceolate to elliptic to four inches long, aromatic, and fairly hard. The leaves are used in cooking, and yield an essential oil used in perfume and medicine. Bark is soft, olive green or reddish. Flowers are small, yellow or greenish-white. Both male and female flowers grow from the tree's leaf folds. Fruit is a shiny, drupe about the size of a small grape or cherry, and may be green, dark purple, or black.