Rosemary
Salvia rosmarinus (syn. Rosmarinus officinalis)
Origin: Mediterranean Basin
Rosemary is, unlike many of the great culinary herbs, a single species rather than a cluster of related plants: one evergreen, needle-leaved shrub of the Mediterranean coast, known to botanists for centuries as Rosmarinus officinalis and, since a molecular reclassification in 2017, as Salvia rosmarinus, a member of the vast sage genus. There are many cultivars, the tall upright bushes prized for cooking and the low, trailing, prostrate forms that spill over Mediterranean walls, but they are all one plant, and there is no second wild species in some distant land waiting to be claimed as another rosemary. The herb that scents a Tuscan roast, a Provençal grill, a Californian focaccia, and an Australian leg of lamb is, everywhere, the same Mediterranean shrub.
Rosemary is a creature of the dry, rocky, sun-struck Mediterranean littoral, the limestone garrigue and coastal maquis where it grows wild within sight and scent of the sea. It is from this habitat that it takes its ancient Latin name, ros marinus, the dew of the sea, for the plant thrives on the salt-laden mists of the shore and seems to drink the very spray. Its tough, resinous, blue-flowered evergreen leaves are armoured against drought and heat, and they are dense with the aromatic compounds that give rosemary its unmistakable character: not the thymol of thyme but a piney, camphoraceous, faintly eucalyptus-like bouquet built on cineole, camphor, and the powerful antioxidants rosmarinic and carnosic acid. It was never domesticated in the manner of a grain; it was gathered from the wild hillsides for thousands of years and, in the gardens of antiquity and the cloisters of the Middle Ages, brought under cultivation as a plant of the kitchen, the apothecary, the altar, and the grave.
More than almost any other herb, rosemary has carried a freight of meaning beyond its flavour. Its evergreen constancy and its lingering, memory-stirring scent made it, from the earliest Greek records, the herb of remembrance and fidelity, woven into the rites of weddings and of funerals alike, a plant that promised that the dead and the absent would not be forgotten. That double life, as one of the most useful seasonings of the Mediterranean kitchen and as the West's enduring emblem of memory, has followed rosemary across every sea it has crossed.
Rosemary's journey is the spread of a single Mediterranean shrub outward from its native shore, first by the cultures of classical antiquity and then, in the age of empire, to the Mediterranean-climate corners of the New World. To the ancient Greeks rosemary was already the herb of memory: students are said to have wound it through their hair while studying, and it was burned as incense and held sacred to Aphrodite. Rome inherited and deepened the symbolism, holding rosemary sacred, weaving it into household rites, weddings, and funerals, planting it in every garden, and recording its virtues in the works of Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides. With their legions and their kitchen gardens the Romans carried the plant the length of the empire, north into Gaul and Britain, beginning its long naturalisation in the cooler lands beyond its native warmth.
Through the Middle Ages rosemary moved on the twin currents of the kitchen and the still-room. Charlemagne ordered it grown on the imperial estates in his Capitulare de Villis of around 795, the monastic infirmary gardens cultivated it as a medicine, and in the fourteenth century it became the base of Hungary Water, by tradition compounded for an ailing queen of Hungary and counted amongst the first alcoholic perfumes of Europe. By tradition rosemary was carried to England in 1338, in a bundle sent to Queen Philippa of Hainault, and it took such root in the English imagination that Shakespeare could have Ophelia say, and every audience understand, 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.' It was scattered at weddings and laid upon coffins, and it became the classic English partner to roasted lamb.
It was in the cooking of the Mediterranean heartland, though, that rosemary found its fullest culinary expression. In Italy, and above all in Tuscany, rosmarino is a foundation of the kitchen: the perfume of arista, the rosemary-and-garlic roast pork, of lamb and of fagioli all'uccelletto, of rosemary roast potatoes, of the rosemary focaccia of Liguria, and of castagnaccio, the chestnut cake strewn with rosemary and pine nuts. In Provence romarin is a pillar of herbes de Provence and the bouquet garni and the breath of the garrigue. In Spain romero scents the slow roasts of Castile and yields the celebrated rosemary honey of the scrub, and in Greece dendrolivano flavours roasts and the baked chickpeas of the Cyclades.
The Mediterranean empires then carried rosemary to lands with climates much like its own. Spanish Franciscan missionaries planted it, with the vine and the olive, in the gardens of their Alta California missions from 1769, and in California's Mediterranean climate it flourished so completely that it became at once a ubiquitous landscaping plant and, in the late twentieth century, a signature of the new California cuisine. The Spanish crown carried it likewise to the River Plate, where romero entered the criollo kitchen of Argentina. British settlers took it to Australia, where it thrives in the Mediterranean south and flavours the national love of roasted and barbecued lamb. And in Australia and New Zealand rosemary acquired a final, poignant meaning: because the herb grows wild on the Gallipoli peninsula, where so many fell in 1915, sprigs of rosemary are worn each year on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day, the ancient emblem of memory bound at last to the memory of a war.
Rosemary is one of the most widely used culinary herbs in the world, and the most robust of the classic European aromatics. Its tough, resinous needles withstand long, high heat that would destroy a tender herb, which has made it the definitive partner of roasted and grilled meats, above all lamb and pork, and of the slow braise, the roast potato, the bean stew, and the oven bread. It anchors the cooking of the whole northern Mediterranean, from Tuscan arista and Ligurian focaccia to Provençal grills and Castilian roasts, and it is a defining component of both herbes de Provence and the bouquet garni. Beyond its Mediterranean home it has become a fixture of the modern kitchen across the Mediterranean-climate world, indispensable in California, Australia, South Africa, Chile, and Argentina, and a standard of the supermarket herb shelf everywhere.
The herb keeps its ancient double identity as food and medicine, now on a far larger scale. Rosemary extract, rich in the antioxidants carnosic and rosmarinic acid, is one of the most important natural food preservatives in the world, used industrially to keep fats and oils from turning rancid and approved as a food additive. Rosemary essential oil is a mainstay of aromatherapy and cosmetics, and modern studies of its effect on alertness and recall have lent a curious scientific echo to the herb's three-thousand-year reputation for strengthening the memory. Rosemary honey from the Spanish and Mediterranean scrub remains amongst the most prized of monofloral honeys.
And rosemary has never shed its symbolism. It is still the herb of remembrance: planted in gardens of memory, laid at funerals, and, across Australia and New Zealand, worn over the heart each Anzac Day, a living sprig of the Mediterranean shrub that grows wild on the shores of Gallipoli. Few plants carry their meaning so far from home, or hold it so long.
Historical Journey of Rosemary
Mediterranean Basin (the coastal maquis and garrigue) — c. 5000 BCE
Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus, long known as Rosmarinus officinalis) is a single evergreen shrub of the rocky Mediterranean coast, native to the limestone garrigue and the salt-sprayed maquis that ring the basin from Iberia to the Levant and along the North African shore. It is a true child of the sea cliffs, and from that habitat it takes its name, the Latin ros marinus, the dew of the sea. Gathered from the wild for thousands of years before it was ever planted, rosemary was valued at once for its powerful, piney, resinous fragrance, for its keeping and healing properties, and for the constancy of its evergreen leaf, which made it from the earliest times the herb of memory and remembrance. From this Mediterranean cradle a single species spread, carried first by the Greeks and Romans across the classical world and later by the Mediterranean empires to every shore with a climate like its own. There are many cultivars but no second rosemary: the herb of the Tuscan roast, the Provençal grill, and the Australian Anzac sprig is everywhere the same plant of the same sunlit, rocky, sea-girt hills.
Athens, Ancient Greece — c. 350 BCE
It is in ancient Greece that rosemary first enters the record as the herb of the mind. Greek scholars and students are said to have woven sprigs of rosemary through their hair while they studied and sat their examinations, in the belief that its scent strengthened the memory, the oldest expression of an idea that would attach to the plant for ever after. Rosemary was burned as a fragrant incense, a use preserved in its modern Greek name dendrolivano (δεντρολίβανο), 'tree-frankincense', and it was held sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love. The herb remains a fixture of the Greek kitchen, where it scents roasted meats and, on the Cycladic islands of Sifnos and Santorini, perfumes revithia sto fourno, the slow-baked Sunday chickpeas cooked overnight in a sealed clay pot until meltingly soft and fragrant with rosemary, lemon, and good olive oil.
- Revithia sto fourno (Cycladic slow-baked chickpeas with rosemary)
Rome, Roman Empire — c. 50 CE
Rome took rosemary, name, symbolism, and all, and made it a plant of daily and sacred life across the empire. The Romans held rosemary sacred, wove it into the rites of the household gods and into weddings and funerals alike, and grew it in every garden; Pliny the Elder and the physician Dioscorides recorded its many medicinal virtues. With the legions, the colonists, and the kitchen gardens of empire, Rome carried the Mediterranean shrub far beyond its native warmth, north into Gaul and Britain, planting the herb in lands where it had never grown wild and laying the foundation for its place in the cooking of all Europe. In the Roman and Lazio kitchen rosemary perfumes roasted and grilled meats above all, none more famously than abbacchio a scottadito, the milk-fed spring lamb cutlets marinated with rosemary and garlic and grilled over coals until charred, eaten hot in the fingers (the name means 'burn the fingers').
- Abbacchio a scottadito (Roman grilled rosemary lamb cutlets)
Castile and the Spanish Mediterranean — c. 1000 CE
Across the dry uplands and Mediterranean coasts of Spain, rosemary grows wild in vast fragrant tracts, and the Spanish kitchen and pharmacy alike made romero their own. Rosemary scents the slow oven-roasts and grilled meats of Castile, flavours the escabeche marinades that preserve fish and game, and yields one of the most celebrated of all monofloral honeys, the amber miel de romero of the scrubland hives. The herb is woven through the Spanish countryside, hung for luck and burned for its fragrance, gathered from the monte for the pot and the still-room. Roasted pork ribs rubbed with rosemary, garlic, and paprika, costillas al romero, are a classic of the Castilian table, the resinous herb cutting the richness of the meat as it slow-roasts to tenderness.
- Costillas al romero (Castilian rosemary and garlic roast pork ribs)
- Pato a la sevillana (Sevillian braised duck with rosemary and olives)
- Pan de higo (Andalusian pressed fig and almond cake)
Provence and the Midi, France — c. 1100 CE
In Provence rosemary is romarin, one of the abiding scents of the garrigue and a pillar of the southern French kitchen. It is an essential voice in herbes de Provence and a frequent member of the bouquet garni, and it is the classic perfume of the Provençal grill and roast: lamb studded with rosemary and garlic, chicken roasted with the herb and a tangle of garlic cloves, fish and vegetables scented with it over the coals. The herb is so abundant on the limestone hills that beekeepers prize its nectar, and bakers work it into the leaf-shaped fougasse, the Provençal hearth bread slashed open like a wheat ear and strewn with rosemary, olive oil, and coarse salt. From the daube to the dinner roll, romarin runs through the cooking of the Midi.
- Poulet au romarin (Provençal rosemary and garlic roast chicken)
- Fougasse au romarin (Provençal rosemary hearth bread)
- Herbes de Provence (Provençal dried herb blend)
- Poulet aux quarante gousses d'ail (chicken with forty cloves of garlic)
- Tarte aux courgettes (Provençal courgette tart with herbs)
Tuscany and Central Italy — c. 1300 CE
Nowhere is rosemary more central to a cuisine than in Italy, and above all in Tuscany, where rosmarino is woven through the cooking of meat, bean, and bread alike. It is the defining herb of arista, the great Florentine roast of pork loin studded with rosemary and garlic, said to have been named when bishops at a fifteenth-century church council pronounced it 'aristos', the best; of fagioli all'uccelletto, white beans stewed with rosemary, garlic, sage, and tomato 'in the manner of little birds'; and of rosemary roast potatoes crisped in olive oil. To the north, in Liguria, rosemary crowns the dimpled focaccia that is the bread of the Riviera, and across central Italy it scents the chestnut-flour cake castagnaccio, strewn with pine nuts and rosemary needles, and the long-simmered Tuscan soups and stews of bean and bread. The herb is the very smell of the Tuscan kitchen.
- Arista alla fiorentina (Tuscan rosemary and garlic roast pork loin)
- Fagioli all'uccelletto (Tuscan beans with rosemary, sage, and tomato)
- Patate arrosto al rosmarino (Italian rosemary roast potatoes)
- Castagnaccio (Tuscan chestnut cake with rosemary and pine nuts)
- Focaccia (Ligurian rosemary and olive oil bread)
- Tuscan white bean soup with rosemary
- Peposo (Tuscan black pepper and rosemary beef stew)
London and Southern England — c. 1340 CE
Rosemary, first brought to Britain by the Romans, was reintroduced and made fashionable in the fourteenth century, by tradition in a bundle sent in 1338 to Queen Philippa of Hainault, and it sank deep into English custom and cookery. It became above all the herb of remembrance, scattered at weddings as a pledge of fidelity and laid upon coffins and cast into graves so that the dead should not be forgotten, a meaning fixed for ever when Shakespeare gave Ophelia the line 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.' In the kitchen it became the inseparable English partner of roasted lamb, studded with garlic into a leg for the Sunday table, and it found its way, more quietly, into the buttery sweetness of shortbread and the herb-scented bakes of the cottage garden. From the wedding wreath to the roasting tin, rosemary is woven through English life.
- Roast leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic
- Rosemary shortbread
California, United States — c. 1769 CE
Rosemary came to California with the Spanish Franciscan missionaries, who from 1769 planted the Mediterranean trinity of the vine, the olive, and the herb garden in the grounds of their Alta California missions. In California's Mediterranean climate, with its dry, bright summers and mild coastal winters, rosemary did not merely survive but flourished, spreading into hedges and roadside banks until it became one of the most ubiquitous landscaping plants of the American West. In the late twentieth century it became, too, a signature of the new California cuisine that grew up around Berkeley and the Bay: rosemary roasted into focaccia and bread, baked into the citrus-and-olive-oil cakes of the old mission groves, scattered over potatoes and chicken, and tossed warm with toasted nuts and chilli as a bar snack. The Mediterranean shrub had found a second Mediterranean home on the far side of the world.
- Rosemary roasted bar nuts
- California olive oil cake with rosemary sugar
- Napa schiacciata all'uva (grape harvest bread with rosemary)
South Australia and the Australian South — c. 1820 CE
British settlers carried rosemary to Australia from the earliest years of the colony, and in the Mediterranean climate of the south, above all in South Australia, it thrived as completely as it had in its native basin, becoming a fixture of the garden and a defining seasoning of the national love of roasted and barbecued lamb: a leg or a butterflied shoulder studded with rosemary and garlic over the coals is as Australian as it is anything. But rosemary holds in Australia and New Zealand a second, deeper meaning. The herb grows wild on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the Anzac troops landed and so many died in 1915, and a wounded soldier is said to have brought a cutting home to South Australia that year. Ever since, a sprig of rosemary is worn over the heart on Anzac Day, the 25th of April, and on Remembrance Day, so that the ancient Mediterranean emblem of memory has become, at the bottom of the world, the very symbol of a nation's remembrance of its war dead.
- Rosemary and garlic barbecued lamb
Mendoza and the Cuyo, Argentina — c. 1880 CE
Carried to the River Plate by the Spanish crown and reinforced by the great wave of Italian and Spanish immigration in the nineteenth century, rosemary, romero, settled into the criollo kitchen of Argentina. It scents the escabeche that preserves game and poultry, joins the herbs of some regional chimichurris, and above all flavours the long, slow cooking of beef in the wine country of Mendoza and the Cuyo, where the Malbec vineyards climb the foothills of the Andes. There the European herb meets the New World vine in dishes such as Malbec-braised short ribs, the beef cooked for hours in the region's deep red wine with rosemary and bay until it falls from the bone, a marriage of the Mediterranean herb and the Argentine grape that could only have happened in the immigrant cuisine of the south.
- Malbec-braised short ribs with rosemary
