A couple months ago, I did something that I — and you — have probably done a million times: I opened a jar of bay leaves. I have dutifully done this whenever I make soup, stew, or any other long-cooking dish, but haven't thought much about it.
But when I gave the lid its last turn and lifted it from the glass, a powerful aroma poofed up at me. I had never really smelled bay this potent, and I found it transforming.
Suddenly, I was in love with bay.
And I was in love with it despite the fact that — judging by the long, dark green leaves — I had almost certainly come across a jar of California bay, which many deem inferior to European, or Mediterranean, bay. (The two are not just different species but different genuses.) As usual, a definitive article on the subject can be found in Ed Behr's The Artful Eater. Ed describes California bay with his typical flair: "A freshly dried batch of California bay I once had smelled rudely to me of bay plus particularly rank rocket (arugula) and bold nutmeg. A few weeks later it had subsided to nutmeg alone, distinct enough to recall eggnog."
The leaves in my jar hadn't diminished to pure nutmeg, but nor would you describe them as "subtle and submissive," as Ed says of European bay. They had a strong peppery and camphor character that, now that I was attuned to it, I could detect as a subtle taste throughout the stew I had cooked. Perhaps now that I've opened my nostrils to bay's character, I will appreciate the more delicate European leaf, but for now I'm enjoying the stronger form.
Bay of course shows up in a myriad of slow-cooked dishes, and Ed's essay suggests using it with tomatoes, potatoes, and as a seasoning in bechamel sauce. But in fit of diegogarcity, I've started seeing intriguing uses of it all around me. While interviewing June Taylor for an article, she had me try an in-progress Mediterranean bay-infused syrup that had all the fantastic bay character I had come to love. At a dinner at Eccolo to celebrate the launch of Novella Carpenter's Farm City, I tasted bay risotto and bay ice cream, each made with locally foraged leaves and having a very subtle bay character (just to confuse things, European bay grows here in California as well, so these may have been Mediterranean bay leaves).
Those creative uses have triggered my own creative impulses: Would bay leaf shortbread be good? Should I make my own bay leaf ice cream?
What do you like to do with bay?
