A Leek on St. David’s Day

“Old remedies were the best. Had not the leeks sewn in the waistband of his long underwear starved off leprosy?” Irish Spike Milligan once suggested. If he had paid attention to his Shakespeare he would have known it is most unwise to cast aspersions of the Welsh emblem, particularly on 1st March, St. David’s Day.

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In Shakespeare’s Henry V (act V, scene i) the Welsh Captain Fluellen finally pays back Pistol for his insulting remarks about leek eaters on the eve before the Battle of Agincourt. It’s taken him three-and-a-half years, but revenge is to be his. It is 2 March 1418, the day after St. David’s Day, Dewi Sant, when once again Pistol insulted Fluellen, offering him bread and salt to eat with the leek the latter wore. When they meet again then, the Welsh captain warns: “I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it is good for your green would and your ploddy coxcomb.” A war of words leads Fluellen into raining blows upon the insulting Pistol, who is forced to the raw leek – without salt or bread. The emergence of the national symbol of Wales dates back some 800 years before Agincourt, however. Legend tells us that when the Celts v. Saxon in a dust-up of 640, the former wore a leek in the caps to identify themselves to each other from their foes.

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The Israelites in the wilderness, fleeing Egypt to the Promised Land, lamented the lack of choice flavourings Frederick Rosengarten (1973) reminds us: “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons and the leeks, and the onions and the garlick” (Numbers 11:5). Roman Emperor Nero knocked back leeks in an effort to improve his singing voice to such an extent that he was nicknamed Porrophagus or leek-eater. The British along with the rest of Europe have to thank the renowned Roman military for the introduction of Allium porrum, along with kissing cousins onions, A. cepa, and garlic, A. sativum. Unlike many other edible Allium, though, leeks do not form a bulb but have an enlarged leaf base. The leek has become a staple of the northern British Isles. It forms the foundation of Scotland’s cock-a-leekie soup, served on the doomed RMS Titanic. Across the border in northeastern England, raising enormous leeks for competition at autumn shows dates back to the mid-1880s, featuring specimens of astounding size. Across the Channel, the leek was equally appreciated by the culinary-wise French. According to Prosper Montagne, Larousse Gastronomique (1938), it was held in “great esteem” by the ancient Egyptians. In France, he wrote, it “is mainly used as a condiment for the stock-pot or as an ingredient in home-made soups, [and] can also be prepared in various ways as a vegetable on its own.” So we come down to today’s supermarket presentations or, if we are lucky, a local farmers’ market or plain old-fashioned greengrocer. For leeks, like cabbages and Brussels sprouts, are at their best when exposed to some cold before harvesting. There has been little investigation on why lower temperatures improve their flavour but increase it they most certainly do. Perhaps this was the cause of a comment made by culinary journalist Howard Dubrovsky, culinary journalist, Food Cult mastermind, formerly resident chef on the Gill Deacon Show, rating canned Cream of Mushroom Soup from Amy’s Organic Soups for Weekend Post. “Leeks are to mushrooms as Nicole Richie is to Paris Hilton,” he suggested.

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