I: Mint
The weird original idea of minted coins.
Good morning. Today is primidi, the 21st of Messidor, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate la menthe, a family of herbs that makes its own flavor.
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When you're looking around at a park to see if any of the plants are edible, you can always trust a mint. My fiancee kindly got me the gift of a wild forager for my birthday who came to our house and taught us how to spot edible plants, and one thing I remember clearly is that members of the mint family always have leaves that grow in pairs directly opposite each other and a square stem. If you see something with those two qualities, go ahead and give a leaf an experimental nibble. Some of the plants aren't very pleasant, but obviously some are delightfully full of menthol and other aromatic compounds. And in some cases, like ours, you might discover you have catnip growing in your backyard.
Etymologically, it's just a coincidence that the word for fresh mint and the word for making fresh money are the same, but let's roll with it. Our whole system of tokenized money, including the word for it, originated with the need for trading cards to help people remember who was in charge.
