Gregg Richter, age 8, of St. Louis, Missouri, for his question:

Do bay leaves for cooking come from the bay tree?

All the different bay trees and bay shrubs have large thick leaves. They give off faint whiffs of tangy perfume. The sweet bay and the red bay or swamp bay grow wild in the eastern states, where the weather is moist and the winters are mild. Their leaves are not the ones tae use to add that extra special taste to certain foods. Another bay tree, whose leaves are sometimes used in cooking, grows in the California and Oregon low lands. But the fancier cooking bay leaves come from a splendid tree that grows in Mediterranean countries.

They cannot stand even a touch of frost and a cold winter destroys them. But many people manage to grow these special bay laurels in North America. The trick is to get a small bay to grow in a container. You can let it spend the winter in a cool room and put it outside to enjoy the summer. This tame bay will not grow much bigger than a shrub. Outdoors by the Mediterranean Sea it spreads wide and grows 40 feet .tall. But the big tree and your little shrub both give the tasty bay leaves we use to bring out the flavor of a special recipe. If you want to try one, buy it from a nursery to be sure you get the proper cooking kind.