Remember Rosemary

Spring is still the dramatic theme for everything around here. Yesterday was downright balmy (which is also an emotional condition common to the first really warm day after winter). I’ve been through enough March’s to know that it’s wise to curb the impulse to march off to the farmer’s market and load up with herbs for the garden. So what did Pip and I do? We marched off to the farmer’s market to buy herbs for the garden… blame it on the season. Not completely ‘balmy’, restraint was exercised in front of the basil and other tender herbs. The weather is not yet predictable enough for those, and chances good that we will still experience a sharp chill before winter is a complete memory. But... Rosemary.

Rosemary is an evergreen whose Latin name translates as “dew of the sea” and it is truly evergreen in its native Mediterranean. My mother had a huge rosemary bush in her English garden. Winters are milder there and the giant bush easily survived year after year. Here at the Gowanus Botanical Garden (aka my patch of terra firma) survival is hit and miss. This past winter was a killer, so who was I to resist a very handsome plant at the market quietly saying ‘take me home...garden...it's spring’? Not me, apparently.

Rosemary is used in winter roasts and stews, but it’s also terrific for grilled dishes. This fragrant herb can also make a nice cup of herbal tea. Larousse Gastronomique says that a sprig "gives delicate flavor to milk used for a dessert". The later was news to me.

Another thing I didn’t know (well, one of many many things I don’t know) is that on April 23, residents of Stratford-upon-Avon (we’re back in England) celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday by carrying sprigs of rosemary through the streets. Tradition has it that rosemary keeps the memory green (and there is actually some scientific evidence to back this up). The Bard himself has Claudius say something to this effect in his opening Hamlet speech. Maybe a sprig or two helped him to remember all those lines!