Herb Bennet, Wood Avens, Clove root, Old Mans Beard, St Benedicts Herb all these are just a smattering of the coloquial and commenly used names for Wood Avens a plant that belongs to the larger plant family of the rose whose other members include raspberry, blackberry, apple, quince, pear, almond and plum as well as the wild plants meadowsweet, hawthorn and rowan.
The characteristic clove like scent and flavour of the roots perhaps give something of a clue about the beliefs that were once associated with and ascribed to this plant. It was believed that if leaves of the plant were kept in the house then Satans power would have no power there. It also provided protection to travellers and was thus worm as an amulet around the neck to ward off unwelcome attack on journeys. The three parts to the leave represented the holy trinity and the five petals of the yellow flower the wounds of Christ.
It is interesting that this plant has been ignored despite its culinary potential and is utterly unrepresented as a native flavour in this country. Whereas cloves, an imported commodity, is relatively well known if somewhat old-fashioned Wood Avens are not distilled into a liquor or added to cakes and confectionary. If a flavour profile offered by the local landscape was to be explored then this would be one of the main components as would the rose flavour extracted from the leaves of the blackberry bush itself another member of the rose family. Then of course the peppery aromatic strangeness of Alexander seeds, the utterly bitter zing of rowan berries, earthy nettles, pungent wild garlic and three cornered leeks, the intense almond flavour of blackthorn leaf buds, pine, water mint, elderflowers, meadowsweet. Some of these are already well known while others are totally underutelised and badly in need of exploration.