There are many different species of mint, but the one used most widely in Western cooking is spearmint (
Mentha spicata). It is native to the Mediterranean area but is found in many other parts of Europe and in North America.
The Oxford Companion to Food calls it "[v]ery widely cultivated and used ... 'the mint' of cooks, the one commonly used for mint sauce and for flavouring new potatoes and peas, in
Arab mint tea, etc." The Ancient Roman naturalist
Pliny the Elder wrote that mint "stirs up the mind to a greedy taste in meat". The later Roman writer
Apicius gave a recipe for mint sauce which he said complemented the flavours of roast lamb (or suckling kid). By the Middle Ages mint was commonly found in European medicinal and kitchen gardens, as well as growing wild. Mint sauce was being made in today’s England as early as the 3rd century, and the practice of serving it with lamb was well established in English cooking before the mid-18th century. In the Middle Ages green sauces made with mint or other herbs were common in
French and
Italian cuisine, but their use declined as Europe entered the
Modern Era.
Louis Eustache Ude commented in an 1816 recipe for roast lamb, "In France we serve it up with ''
maître d'hôtel'' but in England you send up with gravy under it, and in a sauceboat mint-sauce with sugar and vinegar.
Marcel Boulestin wrote in 1936, "I think I am one of the very few French people who genuinely like mint sauce", and he reported his father's view: "'Do you mean to say that they really eat mint with lamb? ... What a funny country'". ==Ingredients==