A herb for all seasons

SUMMER AND WINTER SAVORY - A LUCKY DIP

I'm not sure whether I shall have much to say about this one. Although it is interesting is it not how food goes in and out of fashion? Although truth to tell I'm not sure whether savory has ever been in fashion. I had a quick look at my Larousse Gastronomique - the sort of foodie bible, which dismisses it with a couple of lines, that basically say it is a spicy herb. So not much joy there. However, my lucky dip book, says that it was so popular back in history in England that it was taken to America by early settlers, the Romans having introduced it to England.

Suffice to say it's a herb, that comes in the two forms shown above. Obviously similar but not quite the same. And I have grown it in my garden - you can still get it in some garden centres. It looks a bit like a cross between thyme and rosemary and the flavour is described as a similar cross: "peppery and aromatic, with the elusive scent of rosemary and the pungency of sage".

My source, and the book which I retrieved for my lucky dip is The Penguin Book of Herbs and Spices by Rosemary Hemphill. I was given it by David in 1967 for my 24th birthday. Goodness I was young. I don't remember using this book a lot - well the recipes anyway, though I would have used it quite a bit to find out about the various herbs and spices I came across. I still occasionally dip into it every now and then for this sort of information.

Although this is a Penguin book Rosemary Hemphill was apparently Australian and divided her youth between Broome in WA (you wouldn't have thought there were many herbs there), and Bromley in England where she used to stay with her grandmother. In Perth she met her husband and married him, aged nineteen! He was more or less immediately sent off to war. After WW2 she settled back in Australia in Dural north of Sydney (we almost lived there once), where she wrote books and I think started a herb business. Her son Ian has continued the business and is almost the most famous guru on herbs I think. He has certainly written books too. Rosemary wrote this book back in 1959 (under a different title) and Penguin published it in 1966. She wrote many other books on herbs - mostly with her husband John, to whom this one is dedicated.

The recipes she gives for savory are mostly for various stuffings - especially for fish and for lamb, with an intriguing grape-juice jelly recipe. That one sounds a bit Tudor to my ears. From the little I found elsewhere it would seem that summer savoury is better than winter and that it goes especially well with beans. It also seems to be a nice garden plant - being pretty and drought resistant.

So there you have it. Sorry - not much of a lucky dip that one. It id inspire the post on flavoured salt though. And maybe one day a celebrity chef will find something amazing to do with it and we shall be rushing to plant it and buy it everywhere.