All hail the king

This month KG editor Steve Ott encourages you to embrace the unusual and to rediscover the delights of a once-popular veg

- Steve Ott

There are some crops that can make you feel the weight of gardening history very keenly indeed and the perennial veg, Good King Henry, which glories in the botanical name of Blitum henopodium bonus-henricus (formerly Chenopodium), is a perfect example. It has been grown as a food and medicinal crop for thousands of years and was popular with the Saxons, Romans and widely grown in the Middle Ages. You only need to see the long list of common names it has accumulated to know that it has been in cultivation for a very long time indeed. To name a few: King Henry, mercury, goosefoot (a reference to the shape of the leaves), friar’s pot herb, and fat-hen (it is related to C. album, a common weed and also a prolific self-seeder, much loved by chickens but also edible for humans), Lincolnshire spinach or Lincolnshire asparagus, the latter confirming its popularity in that county.

Although it has been around for so long and can be found as a garden escape in many areas, it finally fell out of favor in common cultivation with the introduction of modern veg such as summer spinach. Of course, there might be good reasons for that – growing our own these days tends to be more about the taste than staying alive – so has this herb just finally had its day?