Many of the herbs found in an English kitchen four hundred years ago would seem unfamiliar to North American cooks today. For example, A New Booke of Cookerie, which was published in London in 1615, calls for some salad ingredients that might now seem more suited to potions and spells: leaves of gillyflower, bugloss, and rocket, to name just a few. Rocket, a member of the mustard family, has a name that might seem to evoke NASA, but in fact it comes from the Latin eruca, denoting a kind of cabbage, whereas the space missile gets its name from the Italian rocca, denoting a long staff onto which wool was wound. Nowadays, rocket might be better known as arugula, a name which also derives (via Italian) from the Latin eruca. Gilly-flower, another herb belonging to the mustard family, was sometimes known in the seventeenth century as July-flower, as if it were named after the month in which the plant bloomed. In fact, however, its name derives from the French girofle, which evolved via Latin from the Greek karuophullon, which was a compound made from karuon, meaning “nut,” and phullon, meaning “leaf.” Bugloss, an esculent member of the borage family, has nothing to do with bugs, but with bovines: the name derives from the Greek bous, meaning “ox,” and glossos, meaning “tongue,” so named because the shape and texture of the leaf resembles an .ox tongue.
An herbaceous plant belonging to the mustard family, native to Eurasia and growing to approximately two feet in height, is commonly referred to as “sow thistle.” This plant was a favored ingredient in salads during the 1600s and its large, deeply incised leaves continue to be used for this purpose on occasion. While the younger leaves of the sow thistle are pleasing to the palate, its taste becomes bitter and unpalatable as it matures.