Mad a MINT
When I was 10 years old, there was one kind of mint (Mentha spicata var. crispa), often referred to as backdoor mint. ‘Pop out the back, love, and get me some mint,’ Mum would say, when making mint sauce for the weekend lamb roast or a fruit salad. Our only other mint taste was spearmint, in bright green, leaf-shaped lollies or toothpaste.
When I was 20, another mint appeared: crumbly dried peppermint (M. x piperita), a hybrid between spearmint and wild water mint, or white peppermint (M. piperita var. officinalis). Soon we could grow it in pots to brew our own peppermint tea, so much better for you than caffeinated tea – or that was the lore then. Peppermint tea had migrated from the Middle East where it was drunk in pretty little glasses, extremely sweetened. We drank ours virtuously plain.
Add another 10 years and I was making tabouli, as Australia’s tastes broadened and we discovered that parsley survives hot, humid summers better than most lettuces, with a lavish helping of chopped egyptian mint leaves
(M. niliaca), a mild, broad-leafed mint.
And suddenly we all went mint mad. The ‘herbal lawn’ craze begun by chamomile lawns was extended to mint: tiny-leafed corsican mint (M. requienii), which indeed makes a glorious lawn provided it is frequently watered, weeded and does not freeze in the frost or die of fungal attack in heat and humidity, and no one drives on it or even walks on it, unless they are as soft-footed as an elf. A small elf, wearing silk slippers, or preferably flying slightly above ground level.
Corsican mint probably looks best covering a garden seat or spilling out of a giant pot. But even then, it needs care. Lots. Creeping pennyroyal (M. pulegium var. decumbens) can be used in the same way.
Eau-de-cologne mint (M. piperita var. citrata) quickly became my favourite mint in fruit salads or drinks – tear the leaves and put them in the glass before you add the water or ice, which crush it just a little bit more to release the fragrance. Orange mint, too, is strongly citrusy.
By then apple mint (M. suaveolens) had almost become a weed at our place, though luckily I’d planted it where the lawnmower kept it in check. It’s a soft, round-leafed mint, with woolly stems and a strong apple fragrance with classic mint undertones. Variegated apple mint (M. suaveolens var. variegata) has irregular white patches on the leaves. Pineapple mint seems to be a form of apple mint. Ginger mint makes a wonderfully warming herbal tea in winter or a chilled one in summer. There’s a jazzy looking yellow and green variegated ginger mint around too.
Camphor mint can take over the garden, if not the entire town. Grow with discretion and don’t try to eat it: it tastes and smells like mothballs. Basil mint and chocolate mint seem to be forms of camphor mint – you can’t taste the basil or chocolate, but you can taste the mothballs.
There are also native Australian mints, such as sweet, bright green river mint (M. australis), forest mint (M. laxiflora), with small, sweetly scented leaves and purple flowers, and slender mint (M. diemenica) that is very similar to pennyroyal though the leaves are longer, and a native pennyroyal or creeping mint, (M. satureioides) with a very strong perfume when trodden on, and tiny white flowers.
I still regularly drink mint tea, though I have gone back to coffee and tea with caffeine; I still make a mint-laden tabouli and mint juleps. And, sometimes, I nip out the back door to pick a handful of mint for mint sauce or a fruit salad, heavy on the passionfruit, rockmelon and banana.