"Miss Perspicacia Tick" wrote in message
...
I've just paid a visit to the Local Tastes shop in Thame
(www.localtastes.co.uk for anyone interested). I'd never come across it
before but, having done some Googling, I've learnt it's considered
pernicious. Shame really, because it's really rather tasty and I certainly
wouldn't want to see it eradicated.

What I /am/ curious about, however, is why the heck is it called Fat Hen?!
It can't mean 'fat hen' as in, well, 'fat hen', surely?! What's it got to do
with domesticated fowl if that's the case...? Are they rather partial to it
and does it make them tubby...? Enquiring minds demand to know! ;o)

Sarah

Found this..........(relevant bit in the very last line :~)

Good King Henry
Family: N.O. Chenopodiaceae
Botanical: Chenopodium Bonus Henricus
---Synonyms---English Mercury. Mercury Goosefoot. Allgood. Tola Bona. Smearwort.
Fat Hen.
(German) Fette Henne.
---Part Used---Herb.
---Habitat---Good King Henry grows abundantly in waste places near villages,
having formerly been cultivated as a garden pot-herb.
---Description---It is a dark-green, succulent plant, about 2 feet, high, rising
from a stout, fleshy, branching root-stock, with large, thickish, arrow-shaped
leaves and tiny yellowish-green flowers in numerous close spikes, 1 to 2 inches
long, both terminal and arising from the axils of the leaves. The fruit is
bladder-like, containing a single seed.

The leaves used to be boiled in broth, but were principally gathered, when young
and tender, and cooked as a pot-herb. In Lincolnshire, they are still eaten in
place of spinach. Thirty years ago, this Goosefoot was regularly grown as a
vegetable in Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and other eastern counties and was preferred
to the Garden Spinach, its flavour being somewhat similar, but less pronounced.
In common with several other closely allied plants, it was sometimes called
'Blite' (from the Greek, bliton, insipid), Evelyn says in his Acetaria, 'it is
well-named being insipid enough.' Nevertheless, it is a very wholesome
vegetable. If grown on rich soil, the young shoots, when as thick as a lead
pencil, may be cut when 5 inches in height, peeled and boiled and eaten as
Asparagus. They are gently laxative.

---Cultivation---Good King Henry is well worth cultivating. Being a perennial,
it will continue to produce for a number of years, being best grown on a deep
loamy soil. The ground should be rich, well drained, and deeply dug. Plants
should be put in about April, 1 foot apart each way, or seeds may be sown in
drills at the same distance. During the first year, the plants should be allowed
to establish themselves, but after that, both shoots and leaves may be cut or
picked, always leaving enough to maintain the plant in health. Manure water is
of great assistance in dry weather, or a dressing of 1 OZ. of nitrate of soda,
or sulphate of ammonia may be given.

As with many of the wild plants, it does not always adapt itself to a change of
soil when transplanted from its usual habitat and success is more often ensured
when grown from seed.

Dodoens says the name Good King Henry, was given it to distinguish the plant
from another, and poisonous one, called Malus Henricus ('Bad Henry'). The name
Henricus in this case was stated by Grimm to refer to elves and kobolds ('Heinz'
and 'Heinrich'), indicating magical powers of a malicious nature. The name has
no connexion with our King Hal.

The plant is also known as Mercury Goosefoot, English Mercury and Marquery (to
distinguish it from the French Mercury), because of its excellent remedial
qualities in indigestion, hence the proverb: 'Be thou sick or whole, put Mercury
in thy Koole.'

The name 'Smear-wort' refers to its use in ointment. Poultices made of the
leaves were used to cleanse and heal chronic sores, which, Gerard states, 'they
do scour and mundify.'

The roots were given to sheep as a remedy for cough and the seeds have found
employment in the manufacture of shagreen.

The plant is said to have been used in Germany for fattening poultry and was
called there Fette Henne, of which one of its popular names, Fat Hen, is the
translation.

Jenny
An enquiring mind is a joy forever :~)