SpiceLines

Delirious bumblebees cling to Dutch lavender in full bloom at Sunshine
Lavender Farm in Schley, North Carolina.

Is there anything more sensuous than a field of lavender in bloom? At the moment gentle waves of icy blue, mauve, and deep violet are billowing all around me and I’m half-drunk on the flower’s warm, camphorous scent. The air is vibrating with the hum of delirious bumblebees clinging to bobbling purple spikes. A dragonfly zooms by, slows, then hovers, wings a blur. Like the rest of us, he’s in a lavender daze.

This is the peak moment for lavender in central North Carolina. It’s no coincidence that Sunshine Lavender Farm, located in the tiny town of Schley, is also holding its 3rd annual harvest festival this weekend. About a hundred sun-struck lavender worshippers have come to drink in the vision of a thousand plants in glorious but fleeting bloom. Artists have set up easels in the sea of purple, families are clipping armloads of fragrant stems, camera-toting gardeners have come to find out how to keep their own plants from rotting in the South’s humidity. Me, well, I’ve come to drink lavender lemonade and find out if you really can cook with lavender.

Sunshine Farm’s lavender grower-in-chief, Annie Baggett, wearing dark glasses and summer straw hat, is mingling happily with the crowd. Every 30 seconds, she is button-holed by someone who wants to know what kind of lavender will survive here (sturdy French lavandins like “Grosso” and “Provence” because they resist fungal rot better than the beloved English L. angustifolia) and why her plants are mulched with gleaming white oyster shells (to reflect sunlight, keeping plants dry and disease-free). With her 100-watt smile, she may be the most blissed out farmer I’ve ever met—and why not, since she spends her life inhaling a fragrance renowned for stress relief.

The word lavender is said to come from the Latin lavare, to wash. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, laundry women were called “lavenders” for their custom of placing sprigs of the fragrant herb in piles of freshly washed linens. A mainstay of the perfume industry, lavender also has a long history of medicinal use, from relieving chest congestion to healing insect bites. In The Complete Book of Herbs and Spices, Sarah Garland notes that “All the old herbalists describe the refreshing effect of lavender for ‘a light migraine’ and ‘swimming of the braine’.” Hospitals in Europe waft the scent into surgical waiting rooms, and modern aromatherapists tout the soothing effects of scented bath oils, candles, and room sprays on the frazzled psyche.

All this is a plus for Baggett, who never intended to grow the herb. The first year on her farm, she optimistically planted a community vegetable garden, but found that deer were her most avid consumers. “They ran through the fields, laughing, with spaghetti squash in their mouths,” she tells me. The next year, intent on finding deer-resistant plants, she installed a test plot of 5 lavender bushes. The deer went elsewhere, so she collected as many varieties as she could find. Today, she has 1,500 well-manicured lavender bushes in a field of less than one acre. Most of them are either “Grosso” or “Provence”—75 percent of the French lavandin oil crop comes from the robustly aromatic “Grosso”—but she has squeezed in other favorites such as “Hidcote,” “Jean Davis” and “Dilly Dilly.” “There are hundreds of varieties!” she says.

I pondered this while sipping a refreshing glass of lavender-infused lemonade. Americans have never taken to cooking with lavender, but the French, especially in Provence where there are vast fields, do use it in the kitchen. Lavender is sometimes mixed into herbes de provence, a blend of thyme, basil, rosemary and marjoram that is traditionally used to season beef, lamb and pork stews, soups, and as a rub for grilled fish. Locals make lavender infused liquers, and in Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, the American writer gives a recipe for Lavender Honey Ice Cream. But although one suspects that French lavender farmers must occasionally grill a whole lamb over dried stems, or infuse a creme anglaise with a few stray flowers, written recipes are hard to come by.

In The Lavender Garden, Robert Kourik suggests that lavender foliage can be substituted for rosemary in almost any dish. Both are members of the enormous mint family, and both have a powerfully aromatic flavor with resinous, slightly bitter undertones. His recipes include one for lamb chops cooked over lavender sprigs and garlic and another for boneless chicken breasts laid on top of fresh lavender stalks and cooked on a cast iron griddle over an open fire. Another idea is to use Grosso’s tough square stems to skewer shrimp marinated in lemon and olive oil; grilled over charcoal, the shellfish are imbued with just a mysterious hint of lavender.

And then there are desserts. Used in moderation, lavender blends well with lemon and other citrus flavors, makes a lovely summery ice cream, and adds a floral aroma to baked goods such as shortbread and pound cake. The Celebrate Lavender Festival Cookbook from the Sequim, Washington Lavender Growers Association takes this idea to another level with recipes for Lavender Crème Caramel Tart and Baked Figs with Ricotta and Lavender Honey Walnuts. Wherever your culinary experiments take you, the real secret is to use lavender with the greatest restraint, particularly if you are substituting the dried flowers for fresh blooms: A good rule of thumb is to use half as much dried lavender as you would fresh. And If you buy lavender, be sure that it is culinary—unsprayed—quality.

Culinary lavender can be ordered from www.adrianascaravan.com or from www.sunshinelavenderfarm.com, which also has bundles of organically grown dried lavender stems for grilling. Robert Kourik’s book, The Lavender Garden and the Celebrate Lavender Festival Cookbook may be ordered from www.lavenderfestival.com, which also provides information about the 10th Annual Sequim Lavender Festival, which will be held July 14-16, 2006.

The flowers of Lavender "Provence" have a sweet, mildly fruity aroma
that makes iced lemonade especially refreshing on a hot summer day.

Right now, the lavender is blooming madly outside the front door. Furry bumblebees are buzzing lazily amongst the rich violet spikes of “Provence”and the bluer ones of “Munstead". The flowers are so profuse that the bees don’t really mind if I steal a few from under their noses. (In the insect world, that would be “from under their probosces…”)

If you don’t have lavender in your garden, this is the moment to look for freshly harvested stalks at your local farmers market—but be sure that it’s organic, or at least unsprayed. One of the simplest and most refreshing ways to experiment with lavender is to use it as a flavoring for lemonade. Pick a few blossoms, make a simple syrup, add water and steep until the sugar mixture has a light floral taste. Then add freshly squeezed lemon juice to taste and chill until very cold.

Fresh lavender imparts a subtle flavor to the lemonade. If you are using dried culinary lavender, cut the amount in half since its stronger taste can quickly become overpowering. At Sunshine Lavender Farm, Annie Baggett makes lemonade by putting dried lavender in a tea ball and letting it steep in hot water until the desired flavor is reached.

Lavender Lemonade

Makes a generous quart

Ingredients:

3-1/2 cups water
1 cup sugar
5 fresh lavender flower heads, or 1-1/2 teaspoons dried culinary lavender (see note)
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained
4 springs fresh lavender, for garnish

1. Combine 1 cup of water with the sugar in a medium saucepan over a hot flame and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the remaining 2-1/2 cups water and the fresh or dried lavender and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer. (If using dried lavender, put it in a tea ball.) Remove from the heat and let the mixture steep for 20 minutes, or until it has a light lavender taste.
2. Strain the mixture into a pitcher or jar, and stir in the lemon juice. Refrigerate until it is cold.
3. To serve, pour the lemonade over a glass of ice and garnish with a sprig of fresh lavender.

Note: Dried culinary lavender can be ordered from www.adrianascaravan.com or from www.sunshinelavenderfarm.com.

One of the pleasures of having an embarrassment of lavender in the summer garden is thinking up new ways to use it. The sturdy, square stems of Lavender “Grosso,” for instance, make perfect skewers for grilled shrimp. Marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and garlic and briefly charred over a hardwood charcoal fire, the shrimp come to the table tasting of smoke, the salty tang of the ocean and just a hint of sweet, faintly camphorous lavender flavor. You could also substitute boneless chicken thighs or chunks of lamb for the shrimp.

To serve 4

Ingredients:

1 pound large shrimp in their shells
Juice of 1 or 2 lemons
Olive oil
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A pinch of fresh or dried culinary lavender flowers

6 sturdy stems of fresh or dried lavender, about 10 inches long (see note)

Method:

1. Devein the shrimp by cutting down the backs of their shells with a sharp paring knife. Rinse and pat dry. Do not remove the shells or the legs.
2. In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and lavender flowers. Add the shrimp, mix well and set aside to marinate.
3. Soak the fresh or dried lavender stems in water for 5 minutes. Remove and pat dry.
4. In your grill, build a fire of hardwood charcoal. When the coals are hot but no longer flaming, thread the shrimp onto the lavender skewers and place them on the grill. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, turn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more, or until the shrimp are opaque and the shells are just slightly charred.
5. Serve each person a skewer of shrimp, along with 2 or 3 more shrimp that have been removed from the remaining lavender stems. Accompany the shrimp with a simple salad of mixed lettuces in a vinaigrette and ears of sweet corn grilled in their husks.

Note: Dried culinary lavender and bundles of dried lavender stems may be ordered from www.sunshinelavenderfarm.com.

Lots of lavender in the garden and the spirit of invention has led to some late night ice cream making marathons. But, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I couldn’t come up with a lavender-scented ice cream that was quite right. Several batches were so flowery that no one could eat them, others—especially those with custard bases—were simply strange when combined with lavender’s camphorous edge. Gallons of milk, quarts of cream, lots of sugar and eggs, and handfuls of lavender—all went down the drain, usually around 2 A.M.

Then Serendipity, just back from France, said, “Mom, I really don’t want to eat lavender ice cream. Mix it with some citrus.” Out of the mouths of babes, especially 20-year-olds, breezing through the kitchen…

She was thinking grapefruit, but I was thinking lemon. Lemon and lavender are a lovely blend of flavors, especially in the dog days of summer. When making ice cream, the secret is to keep all these ingredients in balance—milk with not too much cream, grated lemon zest, a modest amount of lavender, and less sugar than you might imagine. If an ice cream can be described as “sunny,” this is it: bright, sweet, tart and then, that mysterious taste of the flower.

Merci, Serendipity…next we’ll try the grapefruit. Perhaps an ice?

Lemon and Lavender Ice Cream

To make one quart

Ingredients:

3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
8 fresh lavender blossoms, organic (unsprayed)
Grated zest of 1 lemon, or to taste

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, gently heat the milk, cream and sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Add the lavender blossoms and continue to heat until the mixture is very hot. (Do not boil.) Remove from the flame and stir in the grated zest of 1 lemon. Let the mixture steep for 30 to 60 minutes, tasting occasionally to be sure that the lavender flavor does not become overpowering. If desired, add more lemon zest.
2. Strain the mixture into a large bowl, cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate until very cold, at least three to four hours.
3. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. This ice cream is best if served immediately after freezing.