In Search of Lost Lime
Hot Linden Madeleines made with linden leaf flour and linden flower honey
In times of wheat scarcity (notably during the second world war), some French people used pulverised lime (also called linden) leaf as a flour substitute.
Utrecht is a city of Linden trees (also known as the European or Common Lime: Tilia x europaea). Trekking along the ‘Weg tot de Wetenschap’ ‘Road to Science’ [googlemap link] I came across one efflorescing Linden tree after the other. It’s intoxicating scent meant that it was extensively planted in European cities as an antidote to the ‘foul airs’ which were a result of intensive urbanization and inadequate sewage systems in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A curative decoction of the fragrant flowers has been listed as a domestic sedative in the official German Democratic Republic GDR pharmacopoeia [Institut für Arzneimittelwesen der DDR, Berlin, 1989]. Linden flowers can be fried as a vegetable, are macerated to make a schnapps. The flowers have been famed in France as a memory jolting narcotic by Proust (drunk with Madeleines) and used during WW II as a mild tranquilzer for French soldiers. The leaves are another story, these can be eaten when very young (in March/April) or when more mature (May-June) dried and ground as a flour substitute in times of wheat scarcity.
Last week I gathered more leaves from the younger shoots that grow on the trunk of linden trees, along the Oude Gracht in Utrecht, and the quieter (less traffic) linden spots near Beatrix park as recommended by Wim Horst who is an Utrecht Park Coordinator and tree authority. These shoots are also much easier to reach!
As a first try-out, I used the linden leaf flower and linden flower honey to make plump little madeleines inspired by the French wartime use of linden flour together with Marcel Proust’s madeleine induced involuntary memory. Perhaps the most well-cited extract of Rembrance of Things Past is when Proust tatses a petite morsel of madeleine dipped in linden flower tea.
Linden flowers separated from the long green bits
Fried Linden Flower, blanched first than fried in butter
Linden offshoots which are continuously pruned by city councils