Bay Laurel: Classic, Culinary

Uncommon yet classic plants can be gifts that remind us of history, broadscale, and perhaps our own personal histories. One such plant is Bay Laurel.

Classical Associations

Bay Laurel, with its strong and pointed ovate leaves, is surely familiar to most of us. It’s a plant of antiquity, with its form being perhaps as familiar as that of the ubiquitous olive and its branches which are associated with peace.

Bay Laurel has long signified wisdom, prosperity, success, triumph, and achievement. Ancient Greeks with their Bay Laurel crowns and garlands are familiar sights in artwork and sculpture depicting the admirable and victorious, the high achievers. As amazing as it may be to think that an evergreen could rank up there with gold and precious metals to award and honor those with great achievements, that is the case. That is the case with Bay Laurel. One achievement, the “baccalaureate” (bachelor’s degree) has connections to the name of this plant. The title “Nobel laureate” is even closer to Laurus nobilis, the botanical name for Bay Laurel. Suffice it to say, Bay Laurel is a plant with positive associations and meaning.

Culinary Uses

While classical images do run through my mind when I see fresh bay leaves, family and the warmth of home are the strong feelings that make me want to grow the Bay Laurel plant (actually, a tree) myself. 

In just about every sauce, stew, or braised dish made by family during my childhood, a bay leaf was included to simmer along with the other ingredients. In my early attempts to follow those family recipes, I’d reach for a jarred dry leaf to break in half and ultimately pull out of the finished dish before serving. I couldn’t quite figure out the allure of this one ingredient, but I knew it was important—even worth a trip to the grocery store, mid-recipe, if the small plastic jar was found to have been put away empty by a hasty young cook. (Guess who?)

Later, I learned that the allure of this herb (dried, this spice) was a deepening of flavor, or an added element that was hard to pinpoint—something special created by the simple addition of just one ingredient, the dried leaves of Bay Laurel. Later, I learned that even sweet dishes—“dolled up” sugar cookies, for example—can employ bay leaves to impart a hard-to-pinpoint but absolutely lovely flavor, turning the expected into the unexpected.

While whole or halved (typically one per recipe) bay leaves are pulled out of cooked dishes due to their toughness, ground bay leaves (one or two) can be added to doughs and batters and enjoyed in baked goods, for bay leaves are edible. For grinding this and other dried spices, consider using a countertop coffee grinder that has been set aside for spices, to make the job easy. And a fresh bay leaf and citrus simple syrup can be used to drizzle over a plain pound cake… different and memorable.

Why Grow Bay Laurel?

Have I gone on and on about the uses of this aromatic evergreen plant? I can’t seem to help it, given its many uses in the kitchen. But why grow it?

While bay is not the most expensive spice on the supermarket rack—we’ll leave that distinction to green cardamom, among others—like most dried spices, it loses its flavor with age. Fresh bay leaves are a big step above the dried version when it comes to enhancing the flavor of dishes. And if drying the live plant’s leaves is done at home, the timing of that drying is known. That means that bay leaves can be set aside and even shared with friends who like to cook, with knowledge that nothing is too old and nothing has lost its “oomph”.

Pets should not eat bay leaves, as they will cause them upset. And others, at certain times in life and with certain conditions, may want to avoid consumption of bay. But for most of us, having a Bay Laurel tree nearby, growing at home with leaves that are ready for culinary use… that right there is a wise choice, and a victory, a triumph.