Ingredients · Herb

Savory

Satureja hortensis · Lamiaceae (mint family)

Savory
Thyme's peppery cousin — somewhere between mint and thyme, with a piney bite. For most of this country it is an obscure herb; in Atlantic Canada it is not obscure at all. In Newfoundland summer savory is the dressing herb, used the way sage is used everywhere else, and in Acadia it seasons the fricot. It is also the bean herb, with a real affinity for anything in the legume family. Six products carry it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindHerb
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromSouthern Europe (native range)
TasteA cross between mint and thyme, with a pungent piney flavour and peppery hints

How to use it

In stuffing and dressing for poultry, which is its Atlantic Canadian home. In any pot of beans, lentils or split peas. In sausage, meatloaf and pâté. In herbes de Provence. It is sturdy enough to go in early. In Bulgaria it goes on the table beside the salt.

With food

Beans, lentils and split peas above all. Poultry and stuffing. Pork and sausage. Cabbage. Potato. Egg. Tomato.

With spices

Sage, thyme, marjoram and parsley for poultry seasoning. Thyme and rosemary in herbes de Provence. Black pepper. Bay. Onion.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient, though a strong breakfast black tea is what gets drunk beside the dinner it seasons.

Its story

Where it comes from

The genus is native to southern and southeastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. What is sold here is summer savory, which is sweeter and more delicate than winter savory. No lot origin is named.

What happened

The Romans used savory to flavour food until black pepper reached Europe and took over most of its jobs — it was, in a real sense, Rome's pepper before pepper. The name is traced to Pliny, and the story goes that it belonged to the satyrs, though the etymology is genuinely uncertain. Virgil asks for savory among the flowers around the hives. Shakespeare lists it in The Winter's Tale — hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram. Culpeper was emphatic: keep it dry by you all the year, if you love yourself and your ease, and it is a hundred pounds to a penny if you do not. The old herbalists also held that a shoot of it rubbed on a wasp or bee sting gave instant relief. In Bulgaria the table sets out three condiments rather than two — salt, red sweet pepper and summer savory — and mixed together they make sharena sol, speckled salt.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

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