Fish mint

• 蕺菜

  Chinese

  The name under which the Flora of China treats the species.

• 折耳根

  Chinese — Northern Guizhou

  The name recorded among the Gelao, romanised as the survey prints it. The survey does not say whether the word is Chinese or Gelao.

• toninkhok

  Not stated by the source — Manipur

  Given as the local name in a survey of the state’s markets.

• matchaduri

  Garo — Garo Hills, Meghalaya

  A second survey of the same hills adds chadli.

• uithinthang

  Hmar and Paihte — Aizawl district, Mizoram

• pa huai

  Dai — Jiangcheng County, Yunnan

  The same survey records ke sa li guo from Hani speakers and lu lin gai from Yao speakers, all three in its own romanisation.

• phak khao thong

  Not stated by the source — Luang Prabang

  The name under which it is sold in the town’s markets.

A paper on the plant’s volatiles describes the rhizome as eaten in south-west China as mildly fishy, crisp, tender and juicy, with a slightly sweet aftertaste. It gives this as common knowledge and reports no tasting.

Fishy, and the two parts differ. A trained panel of 21 at a German food-chemistry institute smelled freshly chopped rhizome and leaf and rated nine notes. In the rhizome fishy was the strongest, followed by soapy, geranium leaf, citrus, metallic, coriander leaf and green. In the leaf green and grassy came first and fishy second, then soapy, geranium leaf, metallic, coriander leaf and citrus. Every note but the green one was stronger in the rhizome.

Green leaves, usually purplish beneath, on stems that are sometimes purplish red; the rhizome is thin and pale.

The rhizome is described as crisp and juicy; the leaf is thin and papery.

• 3-Oxododecanal — The compound of the fishy smell, smelled alone as metallic, soapy and fishy. Measured at 2.48 g per kg in fresh rhizome and 1.34 g per kg in fresh leaf, more than any other odorant. A panel could tell when it was left out of a mixture imitating either part. Older papers call it houttuynin.
• Myrcene — Geranium-leaf smell. Measured at 111 mg per kg in fresh rhizome and 140 mg per kg in fresh leaf, and the odorant present furthest above its smell threshold in both. Leaving it out changed the smell of the leaf mixture and not of the rhizome mixture.
• α-Pinene and limonene — Resinous and citrus notes of the rhizome, which held 152 mg per kg of α-pinene and 42 mg per kg of limonene against about 13 mg and 0.2 mg per kg in the leaf.(what α-pinene is, what limonene is)
• Decanal and (2E)-dodec-2-enal — Soapy and coriander-leaf notes. Decanal was measured at 5.1 mg per kg in rhizome and 13.6 mg per kg in leaf.
• Undecan-2-one — Often named as a leading volatile of the plant, and by one handbook as a main contributor to its flavour. Measured at 2.0 mg per kg in rhizome and 0.7 mg per kg in leaf, and leaving it out of the mixture with the other weaker odorants made no difference the panel could detect.

Wash, and use raw. The leaf is torn or chopped into a chutney, a salad or a wrapping for fish; the rhizome is cut into short lengths and dressed or stirred into a dipping sauce.

Two parts, used differently. The leaf and tender shoot are eaten raw: as a garnish in chutney and wrapped with fish among the Garo, as a salad in Mizoram, southern Yunnan and Luang Prabang, and as a spice or additive in Manipur. The rhizome is the part prized in south-west China, where the Gelao of northern Guizhou dress it cold, fry it with cured pork and put it in the dip for hotpot; there it is as much a vegetable as a seasoning. A handbook of herbs and spices says the leaves go into salads and fish dishes.

Saururaceae

A herb usually 30 to 60 cm tall with thin creeping rhizomes. The lower stems creep and root at the nodes; the upper stems stand erect and are sometimes purplish red. The leaves are broadly ovate to heart-shaped, 4 to 10 cm long, thin, densely dotted with glands and usually purplish beneath. The flowers are small, in a short spike above four white, petal-like bracts.

East and South-East Asia. The laboratory study of its smell calls it native to China, Korea, Japan and South-East Asia, and the Flora of China gives the range of the genus as East and South Asia.

• China (Seventeen provinces from Gansu and Shaanxi south to Hainan and Yunnan) — native range. The provinces listed by the Flora of China, which records it from near sea level to 2,500 m. Foraged and grown as a vegetable in Guizhou.
• India (Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram) — use or gathering documented here. Sold in markets in all three states; kept in home gardens in the Garo Hills. The Flora of China lists India within the range.
• Laos (Luang Prabang) — use or gathering documented here. On sale in the town’s markets in all four seasons of a survey.

Leaves and shoots are picked through much of the year: all year in Manipur and the Garo Hills, and from February to August in the markets of Aizawl. Where the rhizome is wanted the plant is dug.

Both gathered and grown. A study in Guizhou says people there forage for it in the wild and also grow it as a vegetable crop, and it took its samples from vegetable gardens and from wild sites. In Jiangcheng County, Yunnan, it is recorded as both wild and cultivated, and in the Garo Hills as a plant of the home garden.

A plant of wet and shaded ground. The Flora of China records it in ravines, on stream sides, in forests and wet meadows and along ditches, field margins and roadsides, from near sea level to 2,500 m.

Used fresh and whole or chopped. Nothing read describes a ground or dried form used in cooking.