LAMB AND MINT SAUCE

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 9

LAMB AND MINT SAUCE

SUGGESTED ANTIQUITY. MOSES AND THE PASSOVER. The suggestion that mint sauce was used by the Israelites’ to flavour the lamb of the first Passover was made in the Sheffield Police Court on November 27 by Mr. John Evans, the city analyst. He was giving evidence in a case in which a greengrocer was charged with selling dried mint which contained a foreign leaf. Mr. Evans said that a sample of dried herbs contained 80 parts of mint and 20 parts’ of a foreign leaf known as ailanthus leaves, or leaves of the “Tree of Heaven.” Mint owed its culinary properties to an essential oil, , and was one of ‘ the oldest herbs used for cooking purposes, said Mr. Evans. It was not, perhaps, mentioned by name in the Old Testament, but it was probably one of the bitter herbs with which the Israelites were. instructed by Moses to dress the Lamb of the Passover. Thus to-day they had lamh and mint sauce. It was mentioned in the New Testament, Mr. Evans continued, by St. Matthew and St. Luke, and one verse said, “Woe unto you scribes, Pharissees, hypocrites I for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law.” (Matthem xiii., 23). Mr. Evans added that leaves of the “Tree of Heaven” had none of the properties of mint. The tree from which they came was largely grown in France as an ornamental tree for avenues.

The Old Testament reference is to the instructions by Moses for the eating of the first Passover, inEgypt, (Exodus, xii., 8), “They shall eat the flesh (of the lamb) in. that night, roast with fire, and with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it.’ ’ /