My names

ROSEMARY

I think this will be a quickie.

Whilst wondering what to write about today - various ideas popping in and out of my mind, it occurred to me that both of my names are food related and if you stretch things a bit both of my surnames are too. But I'm not going to look at them. Did my mother know I wonder that I would be a food lover? Well no, because she did say once that Rosemary was for remembrance. She did not elaborate what she was remembering.

And it turns out that rosemary can indeed help memory. They have done experiments with it. I doubt it will reverse Alzheimers, but it is definitely supposed to help you remember. And it tastes good - though a little goes a long way. It's particularly good with lamb. There is a dish I haven't made for years and years - lamb with sauce Paloise which I got from one of Robert Carrier's magazine articles - now lost. I had a quick look on the net but couldn't find this recipe. Sauce Paloise is there and the implication is that it is made with mint, but my memory says rosemary. I wonder who is right? So in this instance rosemary may in fact have produced a false memory. Rosemary is also good with onions, and on focaccia. But do use it sparingly.

It is also very beautiful - every garden should have a rosemary bush. And we have often found that in our rented French and Italian houses it is one of the few reliable finds in the garden. And it also grows wild in the countryside there.

The other thing to say about rosemary is that it is associated with the Virgin Mary - who is associated with the colour blue. I think it is something to do with her spreading her cloak over a rosemary bush, which then produced blue flowers. A myth of course, and the flowers are often more purple than blue, even sometimes white. But then we all see colours differently don't we? My own two bushes are flowering very nicely at the moment. It's one of the few things I seem to be able to grow. So plant one today.

AND OLIVE

Well what can you say about olives? Essential to the Mediterranean diet and to the Mediterraneans. I don't actually like olives much - to eat as olives that is. But I do like their flavour in my food. I use olive oil for virtually everything, and I often will put some olives into a casserole. I like tapenade too. When I worked as an au pair in France, the wonderful family cook, Madame Perruque, put black olives in virtually everything. In particular she had a dish of black olives, beef and carrots, which I have tried endlessly to replicate but never succeeded. It might have had rosemary in it too, now that I think about it.

I was given the name Olive because it was my mother's name. I don't think there was anything more complicated than that about it. And her second name was her mother's name - Alice. We don't do that any more do we? Right up until the beginning of the twentieth century and probably for some way into it there was a definite tradition around how you named your children. It was sort of boring, but sort of helpful too when you are trying to trace your ancestors. And I guess it showed respect for your ancestors. Maybe we should reinstate the tradition - at least for second names.

Olives are for peace and also victory I think - didn't they crown winning Olympic athletes with an olive wreath in ancient Greece? I'm all for peace though.

So what's in a name? In my case remembrance of peace it seems. Considering I was born in the middle of the Second World War, maybe this is the meaning of my name. And let's not forget the food and the Mediterranean, both of which have played a huge part in my life. Of course it's all just chance really.