Food for thought
Eclectic evergreen
Simon Courtauld
During Mary's flight into Egypt with the Christ child, which one may reasonably imagine took place in January, 2000 or so years ago, she hung her cloak one night on a bush. In the morning the flowers of the bush had turned from white to pale blue, matching the colour of the cloak; and so the bush came to be called rose of Mary. Or so the story goes. The name rosemary also appears to derive from the Latin ros and marinum, providing its botanical desig- nation and meaning 'dew of the sea' — because this evergreen herb thrives in coastal conditions. Either way, it is a native of the Mediterranean region, and probably came to England with the Romans. But rosemary is not the hardiest of plants — I have lost two or three mature bushes over the years during severe winters — and should if possible be given protection against cold winds and hard frosts. Grow- ing it from seed is a slow business; better to buy a plant or take cuttings. In the Middle Ages rosemary was grown in physic gar- dens, in later centuries in the kitchen gar- den, while today it is as likely to be found in a flower border or a patch of ground close to the house. It is undoubtedly a most eclectic herb, which has sometimes been used for slightly bizarre purposes uncon- nected with the kitchen.
`... stick your rosemary/On this fair corse', Friar Laurence tells Juliet's father; while it was also the custom for rosemary to be distributed at weddings, by the bridesmaids to the groom to remind him to be faithful. Ophelia, when she was going mad, knew it was 'for remembrance', and in ancient Greece students taking exams would stick sprigs of rosemary in their hair to stimulate their memory. In 17th-century England rosemary would be burnt in court- rooms to give the judges some protection from the foul diseases and odours carried by the prisoners before them. At least its camphor-like smell would have been more acceptable to the judicial nose. One book notes, without further explanation, that rosemary 'is also used extensively in the treatment and breeding of dogs'. A canine aphrodisiac, perhaps? In Seville, during the spring feria, I have seen people with rosemary in their button- holes. This has no connection with wed- dings or funerals but everything to do with a matador whose surname (Romero) is the Spanish word for rosemary. Aficionados of this aged bullfighter, now in his mid-sixties and many years past his best, will wave their stalks of rosemary ecstatically as he gives yet another of his pinchbeck perfor- mances in the bullring.
Rosemary does not play much of a part in Spanish cooking, but is widely used else- where in the Mediterranean, especially in Italy. Having watched a recent television programme on Elizabeth David, in which a florid-faced Chris Patten enthused about her love of Italian food, I was rather sur- prised to discover, from her Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, that she had a pretty low opinion of rosemary. She would do no more with the herb than brush it, dipped in olive oil, over meat or fish. Otherwise, she wrote, the taste of the food gets 'drowned in the acrid taste of the herb and the spiky little leaves get stuck between your teeth'. But this can be easily overcome by using the herb circumspectly — lamb, and white fish such as turbot, taste deli- cious laid on rosemary stalks over an open charcoal fire — or by chopping the leaves very finely. Their flavour, which, incidental- ly, is as good in winter as in summer, can be brought out by first bruising the leaves with pestle and mortar and releasing their oils.
Since the incomparable and on television intensely irritating Delia Smith (when will she learn how to pronounce 'colander' and `chorizo'?) published her second How to Cook book last month, it has apparently sold some 400,000 copies. Presumably sev- eral thousand amateur cooks will this win- ter be trying her recipe for roast pork with rosemary and caramelised apples. Veal kid- neys with rosemary butter, and potatoes, sautéed or boulangere, with rosemary are dishes I can recommend; and others speak well of rosemary incorporated in fruit sal- ads and jellies. So I must beg leave to dis- agree with the judgment of Mrs David, sometime cookery columnist of The Spectator.
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