Chervil (Cow Parsley)

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This tall perennial plant belongs to the carrot family –we’ve all seen it in hedgerows where it gores to 3 feet tall and has frothy finely cut leaves, hollow furrowed stems, and heads of delicate white flowers.

Cow parsley is often called Devil’s parsley, this may be because it has a close resemblance to hemlock, which is a highly poisonous white flower closely linked with witchcraft. Cow parsley is one of the three or four plants described as ‘breaking your mother’s heart’, and while we don’t know quite why this saying came about, it could be because the tiny white blossoms drop quickly and in the days when mothers had to clean carpets by and the temptation to outlaw these blossoms from the house was understandable. Its cultivated version – chervil - enhances the flavours of other herbs when used together, famously in fines herbes, the French blend of at least three herbs, ground fine, where one herb is always chervil.

Cultivation

Maintaining a supply of fresh chervil is a doddle whether from young plants available in autumn or from seed. If you sow it in short drills in the late summer – when it will germinate quickly and make mounds of green ferny foliage that can be harvested all winter. The good news is that once you have chervil established it will self-seed and you will be able to harvest it year round, often it is at its best in winter just when you need it for salads, potato soups, and chervil sauce. A small warning - if you have a rural garden you may have several chervil relatives such as cow parsley seeding around – cow parsley is fine, but other relatives may be poisonous. Be sure you know which you are picking!

Parts used

Fresh or dried leaves.

Uses

Apart from the many, already discussed, culinary uses, cow parsley and its cultivated cousin chervil are both made into tisanes and infusions. The tea is used to treat water retention, stomach upsets and some forms of skin eruption and it said to promote wound healing. Chervil water is prepared commercially and used for babies as a constituent of gripe treatments.

Chervil photograph by color line from flickr under a creative commons attribution licence.

 

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