GARDEN FRESH : Thyme Is on Your Side

Caraway thyme, a housewarming gift from a neighbor’s garden, was the first thing that went into our soil on this mountain I now live on in Idyllwild. I set it by the front door and came out every morning with my coffee and greeted it. I’d bend down and gently rub its leaves between my fingers and inhale the scent--true caraway laced with thyme. Caraway thyme’s stems are slender as broom straws and the color of mahogany, the minuscule leaves forest-green. I wanted more.

Word must have gotten around, because another friend came by with a pot of thyme, this one flavored lemon. The specks of leaves are variegated--blue-green bordered with dandelion yellow and moments of sunset pink. The taste in golden lemon upright thyme is as sunny as a Meyer lemon.

I’d grown thyme before, but nothing like these. Now it was thyme time.

Once, while I was visiting my mother, she dug up some of that very basic thyme--English, it was. English and French are the great culinary garden or common thymes. The gray-green leaves are oval, an eighth to a quarter of an inch long and half as wide. Of the two, the French have the narrowest leaves. If you tap two herb growers, one may say the English is sweeter; the other may prefer the French.

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Stopping by a nursery, I found a pot of silver garden thyme. An airier shrub than the French or English, it has pale-green leaves etched with cream. From a distance, it’s a tracery of silver verdigris.

As with so many plants that grow with abandon, there is botanical confusion among garden thymes. If I’d found a plant named German or winter thyme, it might have been the real thing--somewhere in between French and English in habit--or it might have been French or English in disguise. But all the garden thymes reach eight to 12 inches in soft woody mounds, a touch of the moor in your garden. In the soup pot, their tastes are indistinguishable from one another.

That spring, each of my plants offered fewer sprigs than I would snip for an omelet. In summer, they flowered, starry clusters of rosy pink that drove my bees crazy. By summer’s end, the plants had grown so much I could have flavored a couple of dozen omelets. but I wanted more thyme, more.

The following winter, in my first garden in snow, I found that thymes are evergreen and hardy. While the sages hummed to themselves to keep warm and the mints tried not to let me see them shiver, the thymes paid no heed to the cold. Often when I picked them, strung along the stems and caught in their tiny leaves were glittering crystals of ice.

The following spring, a friend sent an article about an English nursery that sold 40 sorts of thyme. Now I was avid! I wanted the intense tastes of leaves from the shrublets called Miniature--I’d discovered with sage that big flavor can come in the dwarf-est cultivars. I wanted to taste the French-like Porlock thyme. To add the plain, dark-green-leaved lemon, the low, fuzzy-leaved Longwood and the warm gray Britannicus to my lemon collection. To sip a cup brewed from Pennsylvania Dutch tea thyme. And from the mountains of the former Yugoslavia, I wanted to set the bright pink flowers of Adamovica beside the blush pink flowers of the silver.

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From the article, I learned that there are two sorts of thyme: upright, such as I had, and creeping. Hugging close or floating six inches over the ground, creepers root where they touch the earth and can cover a small patch quickly. In bloom (some part of May, June, July or longer), they’re a dazzling swatch of rosy pink or purple.

While all creeping thymes are ornamental, not many are as flavorful as the uprights. Creeping Dot Wells is. It has shiny green thyme-tasting leaves and is as delectable in a stew as edging a border. So is creeping oregano thyme--thyme and oregano are cousins, and this is a felicitous coupling. Nutmeg thyme is spicily nutmeg-y and resembles caraway thyme in form. Lemon mother-of-thyme is low and dense, the one to set along a path. There’s a creeping variegated golden lemon, sometimes called Doone Valley. And surely the sweetest of the garden thymes is lightly citrus orange balsam.

I read that a tracery of creepers is shown to best advantage against wood and brick and stone. And that thyme and stone are incomparable in the landscape. Whether spilling down a stony bank or creeping around stepping stones or perched atop a raised stone wall, stone warms thyme and provides a noble backdrop for its beauty. Well, my garden is carved from the stone of this mountain, so I thought it not unreasonable to start with about 20 kinds.

By now most of my thymes are venerable. They enjoy full sun and well-draining soil that dries out between soakings (thymes are a blessing in drought). I only feed them when I give the garden its once- or twice-a-summer spray of kelp and fish. Herbal oils are usually more vibrant when the leaves must struggle a bit.

To help plants maintain their vigor, you’re supposed to shear them back about one-third after flowering. Go ahead; I can’t. But what I can do is scratch fresh soil into the roots of plants that have been in place a long time.

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What draws me to the culinary thymes? The extraordinary blend of forest pines, desert sages and meadow grasses, with an aftertaste that I can only describe as if the sea made butter.

Besides, when cooking for friends, while some might wrinkle their noses at cilantro and savory, everyone likes thyme. When I know a guest is new to the world of herbs, I simply roast a chicken with small whole carrots, onions, celery, fennel, garlic, leeks, tomatoes, turnips--whatever vegetables are in season--all nestled in branches of thyme. Before serving, the darkened stems will need retrieving and most of the leaves will be charred bits, but there’s a mist of thyme over everything, and our guest will wonder why it tastes so good. . . .

Garden thymes hold their own among composite flavors. There’s nothing like thyme in a rich stew--notably lamb and beef. Thyme is essential to earthy Provencal cooking. It’s slowly roasted with game and rabbit, and it’s tossed into pasta the last minute. The French favor wild thyme ( T. serpyllum ) in cooking, curiously milder than garden thyme. A creeper, in summer it mantles European dry grassland and sandy heaths in deep rose.

It is this thyme that in Europe has long been sipped as a tisane to relieve headaches and other symptoms of stress. In a tall mug, pour boiling water over a heaping tablespoon of fresh leaves or heaping teaspoon of dried thyme, cover and steep 10 minutes. I add a splash of honey. As members of the mint family, all culinary thymes make soothing tea.

Pairing a forceful herb like thyme with vegetables is a balancing act. You must be careful not to let it overwhelm. Try thyme with mushrooms and cream. With butter-steamed fresh favas, limas and white beans. With grilled eggplant or tiny braised artichokes.

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The double-flavored thymes are best used in a single-flavored manner. Steam fish on a bed of lemon thyme. Roast onions with branches of caraway thyme. Sprinkle sliced tomatoes with oregano thyme. Flowers and leaves of orange balsam thyme give a pretty finish to peaches. Nutmeg thyme is splendid mixed into fresh cheese--cream or goat or ricotta--and spread on pears.

Since they are perennials, you can grow some--not all--thymes from seed. But since, for the price of a glossy magazine, you can buy a starter plant of almost any thyme you’ve ever heard of by mail from a herb nursery, the waste of thyme seems a foolish economy.

Sources:

Fresh--At markets with superior produce.

Mail-order plants--Look in all-purpose catalogues for garden thyme.

Sandy Mush Herb Nursery, 316 Surrett Cove Road, Leicester, N.C. 28748 offers about two dozen culinary thymes.

Richters offers several, including Wild thyme: Goodwood, Ontario, Canada LOC 1A0.

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You can harvest thyme the year round. To release the tiny leaves, hold a sprig over a saucer and gently pull a thumb nail from the tip down the stem. Break apart clusters. I pick out the twiggy bits for company, but not for us.

One of the most successful uses of thyme’s dry--in the sense of martini-dry--flavor, I think, is with the sweet warmth of carrots. And one of the tastiest ways with carrots is grated as salad. Ho hum, you say? The old mayo and raisins? Not a bit of it.

From a refreshing standing-up-in-the-kitchen lunch to carrying it in a glass dish to a potluck supper to serving it in small white bowls beside the dinner party roast, this is one of my favorite things to eat. For guests, make it in the morning for the evening. For yourself, keep a bucket of it in the refrigerator and dip into it for days, first stirring in the juices.

Adding half as much chopped parsley as thyme is a lovely variation. The colors are spiffy.

SHREDDED CARROT SALAD WITH THYME

1 pound young carrots, preferably organic, trimmed, scrubbed and patted dry

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste

2 tablespoons thyme leaves

Salt

Freshly ground white pepper

Using food processor blade with 3/16-inch holes, shred carrots into bowl. Long shreds are preferred. Drizzle oil over carrots and use hands to thoroughly mix. Add orange juice, lemon juice and thyme. Mix again. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

77 calories; 76 mg sodium; trace cholesterol; 5 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.85 gram fiber.