Holiday Cooking – Wormwood

Our next holiday ingredient, wormwood, also flavors beverages, and has been used for cooking and medicine. The name sounds like an ingredient in a witch’s brew, but actually came from the false belief that it could eliminate stomach worms, and even protect the home or granaries from pests. An alternate name is mugwort, which has a definite Harry Potter ring to it!

Artemisia vulgaris is in the Asteraceae family (formerly Compositae), or composite plants. Wormwood originated in Europe and Asia, and has naturalized in North America. It was used by the Egyptians, to spice wine and beer as early as 1500 BC, and used by ancient Romans to promote good digestion and sexual health. Wormwood leaves were used to season pork, lamb, and turnips, and as a digestive in Europe, England, and Scandinavia. But its chief use was to season wine and beer. Jan-Öjvind Swahn, in The Lore of Spices, speculates this was done more to mask unpleasant flavors in these drinks, than to flavor them.
 

Botanical illustration of Artemisia absinthium (a relative of A. vulgarius) from Koehler's Medicinal Plants. Published before 1923 and public domain in the United States.

Vermouth was created in 1786, with wormwood as the primary ingredient. Today vermouth is flavored with many ingredients, including wormwood, and added to cocktails for its distinctive flavor. The French add wormwood leaves to the spirit, absinthe, for the mild narcotic effect. (Absinthe was banned in the United States for this reason, but was legalized around 2007).

Wormwood is a perennial that grows to six feet high. Plants are glabrous below the inflorescence, and distinctly downy-gray. Aromatic leaves are ovate or obovate, to four inches long; 1-2 pinnatifid into oblong, toothed or entire segments; and dark green above, and white-tomentose beneath. Inflorescence is reddish-brown, with heads to 1/8 inch across in dense leafy panicles. Propagation is by seeds and rhizomes.