Ingredients · Herb

Rosemary

Salvia rosmarinus · Lamiaceae (mint family)

Rosemary
A resinous Mediterranean shrub whose name means dew of the sea, and the one herb in this shop that is literally about memory. It is strong — the oil runs 10 to 20 per cent camphor — and it is the herb most often used too heavily. Whole needles hold up to real heat, which makes rosemary the roasting herb: it survives an oven that would turn basil to dust. Seven products carry it. Botanists moved it out of its own genus and into Salvia in 2017, so it is now, formally, a sage.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindHerb
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromMediterranean (native range)
TastePiney, resinous and camphor-sharp, with a woody-minty edge

How to use it

Whole needles under and around a roast — lamb, pork, chicken, potatoes — where the heat is dry and long. Chopped fine into focaccia dough with olive oil and salt. In a marinade. A sprig in a pot of white beans. In lemon cake and shortbread, which is less odd than it sounds. Use less than looks right: rosemary will take over a dish and it does not back down.

With food

Lamb above all. Potato. Olive oil and bread. White beans and lentils. Lemon. Garlic. Mushroom. Apricot. Dark honey. Goat cheese.

With spices

Thyme and bay in a roast. Garlic and black pepper. Lavender, in herbes de Provence. Fennel seed. Juniper for game. Sage.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient, though it was distilled with thyme in the oldest Hungary-water recipes.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native to the Mediterranean, Portugal and northwestern Spain. It is first recorded in England in the eighth century, though nothing was properly established until 1338, when Queen Philippa's mother sent her cuttings from Hainault that were planted at the old palace of Westminster. It reached the Americas with European settlers in the seventeenth century. Our lots name no origin.

What happened

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance — Ophelia's line made it the English herb of memory, but the belief is far older, and it became an emblem of fidelity as well. Greek and Roman mourners carried sprigs in funeral processions and laid them on the dead; brides carried it for faithfulness; it was strewn in churches and houses at Christmas, and a medieval belief held that smelling it on Christmas Eve brought a year of good luck. Rosemary grows wild on the Gallipoli peninsula, which is why Australians wear a sprig of it on Anzac Day — a herb of remembrance for a campaign with heavy losses on both sides. Hungary water, one of Europe's first alcohol-based perfumes, was rosemary distilled with brandy, and was the leading fragrance in Europe until eau de Cologne displaced it in the eighteenth century; which queen of Hungary ordered it is disputed, and the whole origin is legend. Rosemary was among the flowers at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

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