Mugwort

Mugwort is a bitter herb often confused with the related herb, wormwood. Mugwort is a common weed across Europe, but not often used as a spice.

Mugwort plant	Mugwort plant in flower	Mugwort leaf

Species:	Artemisia vulgaris.
Origin:	Europe or Western Asia.
Source:	Mugwort grows wild across large parts of temperate Europe and Asia.
Used Part:	Leaves, best cut immediately before flowering.
Family:	Asteraceae (daisy family).
Effect:	Aromatic and bitter.
Etymology:	Genus name artemisia is from Latin artemisia "mugwort", a reference to the Greek goddess of forests and hunting. Species name vulgaris is Latin for "common".
	The English "mugwort" contains an element mu- meaning "fly" or "bug" as in Greek myia, Russian mukha and German mücke, all meaning "mosquito". The Indo-European stem, mu-, is onomatopoetic in origin. In folk etymology, the first element in mugwort is often assumed to refer to the herb's use in beer-brewing "mug of beer". The second element is an old term for "plant" (Old English wyrt "plant" or "root") also found in many other Germanic languages such as German wurzel "root", Swedish ört and Gothic waúrts. Less closely related are Greek rhadamnos "branch", Latin radix "root" and Old Irish fren "root", which all derive from an Indo-European root wrd.
	The Swedish malört "moth plant" for the closely related wormwood is a similar formation referring to the belief that the smell of mugwort or wormwood drives away moths from clothes. The German name, beifuß, derives from the Middle High German verb bivuoz "beat", but the connection is unclear. Perhaps it refers to squeezing the leaves for food preparation, or perhaps to some apotropaeic quality of the plant (to "beat or drive away evil powers").
	The Germanic names of the related plant wormwood (a. absinthium) are not well understood. English "wormwood" appears to allude to the vermifuge properties of that plant, but this is just folk etymology. The name can be traced back via Old English vermōd to a Common Germanic root wermodaz, which also lies behind German wermut (cf. also the name of a wormwood-flavoured wine, vermouth). French armoise amère "bitter mugwort" refers to the increased bitterness of wormwood compared to mugwort.
	The botanic species name of wormwood, absinthium, is the Latin name for the plant and derives from Greek apsinthion. The word still lives in some Romance tongues, e.g. Italian assenzio, Spanish ajenjo, Galician axenxo and Portuguese absinto. It has also been loaned to some unrelated languages as in Basque axinse and Hebrew absint. The etymology of Greek apsinthion is uncertain and may mean "undrinkable", as in Sanskrit ashiva "unpleasant" or "pernicious". The name may also stem from a Middle Eastern language, e.g. Old Persian in which the name aspand applies to a bitter plant of unclear botanical identity.
	Most Slavonic tongues have similar names for mugwort and its relatives: Polish piołun, Slovak palina, Czech pelyňek, Slovenian and Croatian pelin and also Bulgarian pelin. Related names are found in other languages, e.g. Albanian, Romanian and Turkish pelin and Lithuanian pelynas. These names are derived from a Common Slavonic root pal "burn", "bright" or "clear", which itself derives from Indo-European pel "grey". The semantic connection is unclear and may relate the name either to the light grey foliage of wormwood, to its "burning" bitter taste or to the shamanic practice of moksha, which involves combustion of dried mugwort to cure diseases. In some North Slavonic languages mugwort has an unrelated name which means "black stalk" or "dark grass", e.g. Czech černobýl, Ukrainian chornoby and Russian chernoby.
	For the derivation of the botanical genus name artemisia, see southernwood.
Uses:	Like the closely related southernwood, mugwort is only occasionally used as a spice. Its bitter taste fits best to fat fish or meat (often suggested for goose or mutton). Occasionally, young mugwort leaves are eaten raw as a salad.
	The most important culinary application for mugwort is with roast goose, a traditional Christmas food in Germany (weihnachtsgans). Either a few sprigs of mugwort are placed in the bird's cavity before baking or, if the goose is to be stuffed, the stuffing is flavoured with mugwort. The most popular stuffings for this festive dish are based on apples and chestnuts, which go well with the Mediterranean spices thyme, rosemary and bay leaf.
	The closely related wormwood is used to flavour alcoholic drinks and the thujone component of the essential oil is commonly held responsible for the toxicity of such drinks, particularly absinthe (the fin de siècle "turn of the century" drug of the age in France around 1900). Absinthe was a potent liqueur flavoured with anise, fennel, wormwood and other plants drunk with water and sugar. As chronic consumption resulted in severe nerve damage, absinthe was until recently banned in European countries except Portugal and Spain. Liqueurs such as pernod, based solely on anise, established themselves as alternatives for absinthe. As wormwood tastes intensively bitter, it is almost impossible to incorporate quantities sufficient for thujone poisoning by accident. Even if the thujone is separated from the bitter absinthin by distillation, the resulting product is still too bitter to drink without sugar. Wormwood-flavoured wine (vermouth) contains only traces of thujone.