Sweet woodruff

• Waldmeister

  German

  In German shops the word appears most often on green syrups, jellies and sweets, most of which are flavoured without woodruff; a label naming Waldmeister is a flavour description, not a statement of ingredient.

• aspérule odorante

  French

• lievevrouwebedstro

  Dutch

Sweet-smelling and faintly bitter. Infused into wine or syrup it gives a hay-and-vanilla perfume; chewed, the leaf itself is slightly bitter and not pleasant, which is why it is steeped and removed rather than eaten.

Fresh: faint and green. Wilted or dried: sweet new-mown hay, vanilla and almond, the unmistakable smell of coumarin.

Deep green fresh; dried, a dull olive green.

Thin leaves on wiry stems; not eaten.

• Coumarin — Essentially the whole aroma. It is stored in the living leaf bound to a sugar, as an odourless precursor, and is released when wilting or drying lets an enzyme reach it — which is why fresh woodruff barely smells.(what coumarin is)

Wilt fresh sprigs for a few hours first — this is what develops the aroma. Tie a small bunch with string so it can be lifted out, hang it in the liquid with the cut stems clear, and remove it after twenty to thirty minutes. Longer steeping adds bitterness and coumarin without improving the perfume.

Infused, then removed: in white wine for the Maibowle, in syrups, jellies, custards, ice cream and fruit desserts, and in the green syrup served with Berliner Weisse. It is used for aroma alone and is never eaten.

• infusing — The only way it is used. Wilted sprigs are steeped in wine, syrup or cream for a short time and removed. Coumarin dissolves readily into these liquids, so a brief steep carries the aroma and a long one adds bitterness.
• boiling — Used in jellies and syrups, where the herb is steeped in the hot liquid and strained out before setting.

Crush a pinch. Good dried woodruff smells clearly of hay and vanilla; if it smells only of dry grass, it has faded.

• No hay smell on crushing
• Brown, musty leaves

• Slow loss of coumarin aroma
• Moisture uptake and mould in humid storage

Rubiaceae

A low, creeping perennial of shady deciduous woodland, with whorls of six to nine narrow leaves around square stems and small white star-shaped flowers in late spring. It forms carpets under beech and oak across much of Europe.

Native to Europe, extending into western Asia and North Africa, in shaded woodland.

• Germany — origin. Where its culinary use is best established, and where most of what is gathered is gathered.

Gathered in spring, traditionally before the flowers open, and then left to wilt for some hours before use.

1. Gathering — Leafy stems cut in spring.
2. Wilting or drying — Left to wilt for several hours, or dried fully for keeping.Why: As the cells break down, an enzyme frees coumarin from the bound, odourless precursor it is stored as. Fresh woodruff smells of little; wilted woodruff smells of hay.

Mostly gathered from the wild or grown as a shade ground-cover in gardens. There is no significant commercial cultivation for food.

Cool-temperate, moist and shaded, on humus-rich woodland soil.

• Fresh sprigs gathered before flowering, from a known source.
• Dried woodruff that smells strongly of hay on opening the packet.
• For products labelled Waldmeister, the ingredient list rather than the name, to tell herb from flavouring.

Woodruff has been used to flavour wine in the German-speaking world since at least the medieval period, and the Maibowle — white wine steeped with wilted woodruff in spring — remains its best-known use. In the twentieth century the Waldmeister flavour became a staple of German confectionery and soft drinks, now almost always produced without the herb because of limits on coumarin.

Negligible as a traded herb; mostly gathered locally. The Waldmeister flavour is an industrial product that does not depend on the plant.