When thinking of the gifts bestowed on us by the Ancient Greeks, it can be easy to forget today’s word among things like mathematics, democracy, philosophy, etc. Maybe the herb rosemary does not quite rank up there with the works of Plato or Socrates – though rosemary’s leaves do resemble hemlock needles – but, without the initial usage by the Greeks, who influenced the Romans, there is a good chance that rosemary would not be as disseminated as it has become or used in as many cuisines as it is.
In English, the word rosemary is an altered form of the original word rosmarine, which comes from the Latin words ros and marinus, translated as ‘dew of the sea,’ denoting the fact that wild rosemary often grew near the Mediterranean coasts.
From mythology, a story tells of how rosemary was draped around Aphrodite as she emerged from the sea, thus further explaining the name.
However, Christian folklore also tells a story of how a blue cloak spread over a white-flowered rosemary by the Virgin Mary turned the flowers blue. It is from this Christian story of the flower changing colour that our herb became known as rosemary, literally, ‘the rose of Mary.’
Stories aside, rosemary’s uses, culinary and otherwise, cannot be overstated. Sure, we may be most familiar with it in Mediterranean cuisines, such as Greek, Italian, Spanish, and, in the south, French, but it has even develop a home in our dishes. In fact, one of the first mentions of the word in English is a cooking reference: a recipe from the 1390s for a Forme of Cury in Hieatt and Butler’s Curye on Inglysch (1985) calls for: “Salad. Take parsley, sage, green garlic,..rosemary, purslain; wash them carefully.”
Aside from cookery, one of the other chief uses for rosemary is medicinal: though we are a fair bit away from Macer’s Herbal (1373), which discussed the “virtues” of herbs, including taking “the flowers of the rosemary and bind(ing) them in linen,” modern science is showing that it can ease indigestion when eaten, lessen muscle and joint pain when applied topically, and neutralise food-borne pathogens, among other things.
