October 6, 2021 • 41 mins
This herb has been used in foods, drinks, medicines, and religious practices since time immemorial. Anney and Lauren explore the science and history of rosemary.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of My Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about Rosemary. Yes, yeah, oh
I take it. I take it by that tone that
you also love a rosemary. I do love a rosemary. Um.
It is one of my very favorite Star Wars drinks
(00:30):
that I've created over this Actually, excuse me, Samantha over
at stuff on you created this strik heck. Yeah, okay.
It's kind of a French seventy five but with a
BlackBerry rosemary muddle kind of and then a strig of
rosemary garnish. That sounds yeah, that sounds really nice. Yeah,
(00:50):
it's the tattooing sunset. Very good. Um. But one of
my primary memories is like when I was in college
and I was you know that you had those tiny
on the hall of the one kitchen and my roommate
we had a bunch of mishaps in that one kitchen,
and one of the mishaps was we put way too
(01:11):
much rosemary and something, but we were also both way
too cheap to throw it away, just like they're like
fine sault loving this. Yeah essentially yeah, um, And Also,
my family used to go biking Rosemary Dunes, which I
believe it is. If it's not a National park, because
(01:32):
state park, it's something, um, and it's in Gulf Shores, Alabama,
and we've been doing it for years and years and years.
I think it took us approximately five years to figure
out that it was called Rosemary Dunes because there was
rosemary growing in the dunes, which is all sounded pretty right.
Sure you're like, oh, yes, Rosemary Dunes, and then you're like, oh,
(01:54):
those are dunes and they have rosemary and them cool. Yeah,
pretty straight to the pool. Right, Yeah, that's right right
what it says on the tin. I also love some rosemary. Um.
I I grow rosemary in my garden and forget that
I have it all the time. And uh, to be fair,
(02:17):
I my poor little scraggly rosemary plant is not doing
its very best. Uh. I'm not sure what to do
to make it better at this juncture. Uh, It's okay,
we're we're all. We're all a little scraggly these days,
to be honest. Truth. You know what can help with that?
(02:38):
Rosemary a very pleasant smell. It's strong. Though. This is
when people are like, are you okay, over at favor
five or five or five? Doing just all right? M
oh goodness, perhaps we should get to our could please
(03:00):
bring us to our question, Annie, I will allow it,
I will okay, all right. Rosemary? What is it? Well,
rosemary is a type of herb that grows on an
evergreen shrub that's perennial in temperate climates, meaning it does
not shed its leaves seasonally, and it will keep growing
(03:22):
year after year. It's a small leaves are deep green
on the top and white on the bottom for a
kind of silvery effect because it's it's partially rolled up
into these sort of pine needle like shapes. But but
they're a bit more tender than than pine needles. The
leaves are very fragrant. Yes, if you just brush up
against them, you'll come away with the scent. And that
scent and flavor is a woody and savory and piney
(03:46):
and a little lemony and a little pikeant um. It's
sort of like a it's sort of like being in
a in a pine forest on a on a on
a warm but crisp fall day. It's it's like a
I didn't I didn't write this one down. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what it's like. I feel like that
was pretty good. Does that? Does that cover it? It's
(04:08):
somehow both like warming and cooling. It's sort of you know,
it reminds me of cooler weather. Yeah, but I associate
it with more of a warm, warm foods and warming sensation. Sure. Yeah,
well it's it's got both them both. Some camphor in it,
which tends to be like a like a cooling sensation,
um oil in your mouth, and it also has some
(04:30):
of those right, like like like woody and lemony kind
of notes that we associate with like summer and uh
kind of like bright warming flavors, right, um so, so yeah, yeah,
it's it's both both at the same time. It's going like,
oh man, I wish I could eat a pine tree,
and then you did all good for you, you know
I immediately and like that sounds terrible for your teeth,
(04:53):
But do you want to eat a pine tree then
darn it. Yeah it's not. It's not a pine tree,
um uh it is. It is an herbal shrub. The
plant can grow up to about six ft that's two
meters tall, but it's more often around half that and
right yeah, yeah, really really kind of kind of scruffy um.
With these small leaves growing off of tall branching stalks,
(05:16):
it'll put off small clusters of flowers in white to pink,
to purple to blue, which when pollinated, will produce these
small seed pods that could be harvested to plant more rosemary.
With um. You can also grow new plants from cuttings.
As with many Mint family herbs, the botanical name is
Salvia rose mariness, which means it is distantly related to
(05:37):
lots of other herbs like sage, time and chia and
the right. It is in the mint family um lamiasi.
A rosemary, like many of its aromatic cousins, developed a
couple of really cool like growth and or defense mechanisms
along its evolutionary path um. One of those is that
(05:58):
the surface of each leaf, or rather a think like
the under surface, has these tiny hair like structures extending
out of it that are called tricombs, and these physically
prevent insects and microbes from reaching the surface of the
plant and eating it, which you know the plant doesn't
want them to do. Another of these mechanisms is that
(06:18):
it produces just a lot of oils that contain an
impressive density of compounds called terpenoids UM, which often act
as fungicides, insecticides and anti microbials UM. And those little tricombs,
the little hairs trap we globs of those oils on
the surface of the leaves UM, like like defensive water balloons. UM.
(06:41):
So if a microbe or an insect reaches through the hairs,
it's likely to get doused in these oils that are
not good for them. But we are a food show. UM.
Those oils that are toxic to pests and can even
put off some mammals from eating a plant are things
that we have decided taste and smell delicious. Indeed, you
(07:03):
can't stomp us. No, no, you just try rosemary. You
just try. Now that's a challenge. Oh no, um uh. Yes.
Around the world people put rosemary and all kinds of dishes.
It is most often paired with savory flavors, but is
sometimes added to sweet dishes or drinks to add like
(07:25):
a savory contrast in there. The leaves are the main
part of the plant that's used culinarily UM and can
be harvested by trimming off branches and just using them
a whole, just like laying them on top of meats
or vegetables as they roast, and letting the oils drip
on down, or in a bouquet garni, which is a
sort of bundle of herbs that you would steep in
soups and stews, or you can separate the leaves off
(07:48):
of the stems, chop them up fine, or dry them
out and grind them into a powder. Rosemary is a
common addition to meats like lamb and chicken and pork, um,
savory breads, root vegetables and potatoes, dairy condiments like butter
or goat, cheese, spreads or yogurt, anything that you're gonna
put lemon into. It goes pretty well with because it's
got some of the same flavor compounds in there. Um.
(08:10):
It sometimes gets pigeonholed as like a winter or holiday
herb for a number of reasons that we'll get into
more in our history section. But also I mean like
it's evergreen in a lot of places, so you can
like go pick some during a cold winter, as you
cannot with many other herbs. Yeah yeah, um. You can
also extract the essential oils and use those um for
(08:33):
this purpose. Rosemary is grown to the stage where it
flowers because the buds contain a lot of those essential oils.
These are also used in perfumes and other cosmetics, and
rosemary is planted just as an ornamental in gardens here
in Atlanta. Walking around in some of our like like
century plus old neighborhoods, you find it a lot on
(08:53):
the hilly slopes of front lawns because it's really good
at gripping into soil and hold again in place, and
it's yeah, I'm gonna have to keep an eye out
for that. I don't think I've ever been like, oh Rosemary,
Oh my goodness. I clock it everywhere I go in
case I ever need like emergency rosemary sneak onto someone's
law and steel the rosemary. I I've definitely taken rosemary
(09:17):
from people's lawns before. I haven't gone up on only
from like sidewalk access, but I've definitely plucked rosemary stocks
from random neighbors lawns before because I've just been like, oh, Rosemary,
I could use some of that. Now I know what
those wanted posters are, rosemary thief. It's only when there's
(09:38):
a clearly like overabundance of rosemary. I would never like
like look at like a little seedling and go like
ha ha ha ha, I have this this rosemary for myself.
Oh no, sounds like you were pretty ready with deflection
and story. Well, moving on for perhaps legal purposes, um
(10:08):
uh do do to um some of the properties of
of rosemary extracts UM, namely namely antioxidant properties. Rosemary extract
is also approved as an additive for food preservation in
the European Union and some other areas. Cool. Well, speaking of,
(10:29):
I guess what about the nutrition You're generally not, as
with most herbs, eating enough rosemary to make like a
huge nutritive difference, um, Because yeah, rosemary packs a huge
flavor bang for its caloric buck. A little goes a
long way, as Annie um herbed around and found out.
(10:50):
But but if you are eating the actual leaves, they're
they're high in fiber, have a smattering of vitamins and minerals,
and rosemary has been used in traditional medicines and folk
medicines for all kinds of things forever UM and modernly
it's extracts have been found in fact to have all
kinds of properties um anti cancer, anti diabetic, anti inflammatory,
(11:14):
antina size upt of pain, anti diuretic, anti blood clot,
anti ulcer and protective of the liver and brain and
UH in the in the latter case, there's a bunch
of really interesting research into UM. How like, the combination
of compounds in rosemary, including antioxidant and anti inflammatory, along
(11:37):
with some others, may be particularly helpful in fighting degenerative
brain diseases like Alzheimer's, which are caused by brain cell death. UM.
There was even some research conducted with to be fair,
of very small sample of subjects that indicated that rosemary
oil aromatherapy may have a positive impact on immediate memory
(11:57):
recall UM hypothetically by preventing the breakdown of this one
particular neurotransmitter and the and this neurotransmitter is one that
helps your brain remember to like, like go check the
toast before it burns, that kind of thing. Oh I
like that neurotransmitter. Yeah, me too. I don't I don't
have enough of it. I don't think maybe I should
(12:18):
be diffusing some rosemary essential oil into my home at
all times. Who knows, it's a nice smell, as I said,
it is. I like it. I like it, And we
do have a couple numbers for you. We do, not
too many, but a few. Yeah. So, I've read some
differing numbers about the size of the global market for rosemary.
(12:41):
It's it's extracts are a lot more closely followed than
its use fresh, which tends to be a pretty local
sort of thing. Um. Rosemary did originate around the Mediterranean Sea,
and to this day is most produced in that region.
As much as of rosemary that's destined for essential oil
is grown in Tunisia and Morocco. And I think that
(13:02):
the US uses or maybe processes and then sells most
of that. I couldn't, I wasn't super clear, and I
was unwilling to spend five thousand dollars on a market
research report to find out. But like, but like, up
to a third of rosemary essential oil is bound for
the US in one way or another. Huh. Yeah interesting.
(13:22):
I think, um, grain of salt, y'all. Uh. And I've
read estimates that rosemary's global market value was worth two
and fifteen million dollars and growing as of I've also
read that it's expected to grow like really aggressively and
hit over a billion dollars by the end of the year. Wow. Yeah,
(13:46):
So I don't know. I don't know either, people getting
really turned onto rosemary. Yeah, it's right, you know. It's
it's a for for for culinary purposes, for medical purposes,
for cosmetic purposes. Um, it's it's a It is popular
in a number of industries. This is true. And it
(14:07):
has a long history of being popular in a number
of industries. Oh my goodness, it does. And we are
going to get into that after we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So yes.
(14:29):
Rosemary originated in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean over five
thousand years ago. Uh spriggs were found in Egyptian tombs
dating back to three thousand BC. Records suggests that the
Egyptian king Ramsey's the Third offered god Amana at thieves
one hundred and twenty five measures of rosemary. Okay, yes.
(14:51):
Ancient Greek students may have eaten it to try to
boost their memory. Um, and may have worn rosemary garlands
when studying. Example, I'm trying to think if I did
anything like that. I guess there was that whole like
brain food idea when I was a kid where my
mom would be I have an orange this morning or something.
If I had a big test, but I did not
(15:12):
wear any garlands of rosemary. Maybe maybe it's time, Maybe
we should time. It sounds fancy. Rosemary is also very pretty,
so it is right next time we record Laurence, let's show. Okay,
so yeah, into it, into it alright perfect. Ancient Romans
believed that the odor preserved dead bodies and that the
(15:35):
color civilized eternity, sort of like being evergreen maybe um,
And so they used it in in funeral practices, and
it's still used in some funerary practices to this day
and has been across the world. By rosemary had been
introduced to China, and by the ninth century it was
growing in the UK. And yes, it has long been
(15:59):
used for all kinds of things, for distally like improving memory,
as an anti inflammatory and antiseptic for digestive health. Some
sources suggest it may have been burnt in French hospitals
to cleanse and purify the air. Going back to the
ninth century, it was being used for fever and toothache,
and during the sixteenth century it was used for gout,
(16:20):
bad dreams, lost appetite, coughs, and as a toothpaste. Yeah,
when crushed, mixed with Colt's foot and smoked, it was
thought to alleviate asthma and other long conditions. Yeah. Just
over the centuries, it's been used for just about everything,
all kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, I love all of this.
I love that, like anything that was strongly flavored enough
(16:42):
was basically like, well, this must have good properties. Let's
just let's just do it. Yeah, yeah, let's just do it.
They'll just try it for that or that or Yeah.
Certainly plenty designated the plant rosemarness or sea dow because
of where it grows in the Mediterranean. But there's a
lot going on with his name. Yeah, yes, okay, so
(17:05):
legend has it, and this is one of many legends,
but this one has it that the name was an
homage to the virgin Mary because of the color of
the flowers. This color was thought to match the colors
of her clothing. And perhaps people believe, yes, But this
is what gets me. Perhaps people believe that the maximum
height that this the rosemary plant grew matched that of Christ,
(17:27):
or that it lives to thirty three years, the same
age Christ was when he died. Okay, yeah, okay, yep um.
The names for rosemary and other languages reflects similar things.
The Spanish word for rosemary refers to the story of
Virgin Mary resting under a rosemary bush while she made
her way to Egypt. Another similar story about the origin
(17:50):
of the plant's name differs on the details of that,
but Uh instead says that Mary tried to cleanse the
clothes of Christ and then dried them on a quote
evil smelling, but giving the bush the pungent smell we
know today, or that the clothing stand to the flowers
blue instead of the other way around. Sure sure um.
(18:10):
Other names and yet other languages reflect more different mythologies.
UM of Portuguese word derived from a Scandinavian word um,
implies that it is a plant of the elves, an
elven plant um, and apparently Sicilian stories told of m
fairies using rosemary flowers as cradles for their little fairy babies.
(18:35):
Oh yeah, my child, and you got very excited about that.
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I was thinking about all my
favorite illustrated versions of them bolina um and as a
sort of botanical cross reference, um. The the shape of
a rosemary's flowers if you've ever seen one, or if
you can go google it right now. Um has this
(18:56):
sort of like this sort of like cup shape with
this kind of like the goodness. I'm forgetting my botanical terms,
but but one of the flower bits kind of closes
over the bottom of the flower pedals over the bottom
lip of the flower, so that when a bee goes
in to get the good stuff, it rubs. It's it's
plants sexy bits on the back of the bee to
(19:16):
help better to help better spread. Yeah, wow, plants sexy bits. Yeah,
that only the technical terms here on savor. Yeah, this
is what you get when Lauren doesn't write down her notes.
I liked it. I have The bees do too, from
what I understand, they do like Rosemary. Yeah, yeah, they do.
(19:38):
They do goodness? Please please would you continue any I
get I feel like this is the second time I'm
getting you out of a hole. I owe you, my dude,
I owe you. UM. I also found one article claiming
that the name Rosemary comes from Rosa marina, which was
(19:59):
this myth from medieval times about a girl born from
a specific type of bush, but she was only born
when it was watered with dragon's blood, and that sounds
like a fantastic story to me. Yes, I would have
loved that as well when I was a kid. Perhaps
all of these naming legends are tales. Give you the
(20:21):
idea that rosemary has a long history when it comes
to symbolism, because it absolutely does, whether it's remembrance, consistency, fidelity,
loyalty and friendship or all those things. Because of this,
Elizabethans used it as a token at weddings and funerals,
and according to some sources that may have even been
used to keep witches at bay um and some believed
(20:44):
it attracted fairies. Yeah, yeah, there was an old English
saying that quote rosemary grows best where the mistress is master,
because yeah, I know, because of its popularity in kitchen
guard ends. And this is the saying that originated in
eight seventy UM and it was first recorded uh coined
(21:08):
by Treasury of Botany John Lindley. And because of this,
men of the house sometimes destroyed or damaged rosemary plants
that were flourishing, believing that it meant they had lost
control of the household. Oh, which was very silly that
in my opinion, in my modern day opinion, that's right, right, modernly,
(21:32):
that would not be the first thing that I would
try to remedy a perceived imbalance of power in a household.
But unless Rosemary was very involved, that would be a
specific situation. Though. Yeah, that's like, that's like a movie
I moving on, Moving on. Rosemary is still used in
(21:52):
Australia in a n Z A c R on Zac
and remembered stay because of how well it grows on
the gallophole the peninsula. During the Middle Ages, some brides
may have worn a crown of rosemary, while the groom
and guest wore a sprig of it, or even a
ribbon branch with rosemary, to represent love, fidelity, and loyalty,
and perhaps from there, from all of this it became
(22:15):
kind of symbolic of a love charm. Young people might
have tapped each other with a sprig of rosemary, and
if the flower opened when tapped, it meant that they
were going to fall in love. Yeah. Newlyweds might plant
a branch of rosemary on their wedding day and if
it group was supposed to be a good omen I'm
(22:36):
guessing if it didn't not, a good open spriggs might
be placed in linen's to encourage fidelity, put in dolls
to attract lovers, um, just all kinds of things. According
to some more, eating rosemary on the eve of st
Agnes or January will either ease the hearts of someone
(22:57):
struck with unrequited love, usually a girl, or if you're
a girl and a virgin, you might take a shower,
put a rosemary sprig under your pillow, say sat Agnes.
That's to lover's kind. Come ease the trouble of my
mind before falling asleep and go to bed before midnight.
Has to be before midnight. Dreams of your future husband.
(23:19):
And if that dream is blurry, then that's his him.
You can't see his face, that's it, okay. But if
the face is clear, that's not that guy. So don't
waste your time with that fool. Oh jeez, this is
all right. Yeah, I know we've talked about this before.
This is the kind of stuff I would do when
(23:39):
I was younger. UM. More modern iterations allow for the
use of an image of rosemary on your phones lock
screened UM, or a printed picture placed under your pillow
as opposed to the real thing. So a picture of
rosemary as opposed to real rosebery see, I'm just I'm
(24:01):
really caught up on this whole thing where like if
you if you can see a dude, it's not that dude.
But if you can't see a dude, then it's that dude.
Because if you can't see him, then who is he?
That's the intrigue, Lauren. It's almost like it doesn't really work.
(24:24):
Although hey, like, like I appreciate using herbs to cause
cautionary dreams about who you shouldn't marry. That's cool, you know,
I bet it's a I'm probably thinking way too deeply
about this, but it is like Halloween season, so that
I have been. But it's probably like, you know, you
need to you have to project onto the blurry face,
(24:47):
the face of the person you want. You need to
get to the bottom of it. There you go, that
is the message. Yeah, no one's gonna give you the answer. Yeah, exactly,
do the work. Do the work, to the work. We've
gotten to the bottom of this. But this whole practice
originated in eighteen hundreds, England. The prayers are from John
(25:11):
Keats's nineteen poem The Eve of st Agnes. Love it,
I love it too. According to one thing I read
another English tradition goes as follows, dips briggs of rosemary
into a mixture of wine, rum, gin, vinegar and water
inside a glass bowl must be glass. On the eve
of St. Magdalen, meet with two other young girls, each
(25:32):
less than twenty one years of age. The rosemary spriggs
then are pinned to their tunics, and each girl takes
three SIPs of the rosemary tonic, then rest in the
same bed without speaking. The dreams that follow will be prophetic. Ah.
I love this kind of stuff so much. Why don't speak? Definitely,
(25:55):
don't don't even look at each other. This certain it
was not invented by parents who about to have a
sleepover and just wanted just really wanted a quiet night.
I love how many urban legends when you get to
the bottom of them, or like, go home and don't
cause any trouble, get good grades, don't call trouble. Got it?
(26:20):
Just listen to your parents, would you? Yeah. Another rosemary
legend goes that rosemary has the ability to restore youth.
It tells the tale of a queen who took a
rosemary bath three times a day, causing her old flesh
to fall off and leaving behind a quote young and
tender layer. Ah, and this might relate to a real
(26:45):
perfume that was used that we're going to talk about
in just a second. Yes, another fascinating thing. Um And
another suspicion from the sixteenth century claimed that rosemary only
grew in the gardens of the righteous. There you go,
it's my righteous garden. But yes, stepping back a bit,
(27:11):
a thirty five see Imperial Library of Vienna document contained
a recipe calling for a distillation of lavender, myrtle and
rosemary that tasted like honey called hungry water um allegedly
used to cure Hungarian Queen Elizabeth paralysis, and after that
it went on to become really popular in the south
(27:31):
of France. Yeah, and there's all sorts of legends about
this um. I couldn't get to the actual bottom of them,
but right, Uh, Hungry water is said to have been
right to be to have been invented by or for
um a Hungarian queen, possibly Isabella um and that it
(27:54):
possibly like restored her youth or or made her so
glad worstly beautiful at the age of like seventy or
seventy five, that that that a like twenty five year
old prince asked her hand in marriage, or that she
bathed in it every day, or that I don't know
that all of this, all of this stuff, but one
(28:14):
way or another, Um, rosemary and um distilled alcohol perfumes
were from what I can tell, quite popular for a
hot minute in Europe. Yes, that is what. That is
what I garnered from this. Um. Other herbs were involved
as well, That's all I got. Yeah, I do love
(28:38):
how many like legends and lore we're getting to talk
about in this episode. Yeah, it's fun. It is. During
medieval times, some pockets of France may have used rosemary
as part of their embalming practices. For a period after
the sixteenth century and then onward, rosemary was used as
(28:58):
a Christmas tree type of thing in Europe okay, though
it was eventually replaced by pine trees and points that
he is. Around the same time, the Gerard herbal claimed
that rosemary could treat okay, here we go, could treat
bloody diarrhea issues in the brain, in the head, that
it quickens the senses and proves the memory. That it
(29:18):
could quote take it away stench of the mouth and
breath and make it it very sweet. Um that when
worn as a garland, it could prevent the brain from
being stuffed with cold humors, that it restores speech to
those who have been possessed, that it could cure jaundice,
cure stoppages of the liver, and lukaria. That when the
flowers were mixed with sugar, it comforted the heart, made
(29:41):
you marry, quickened your spirits, and made you livelier, which
sounds nice. Yeah, sounds very nice. Sure. The cold Pepper herbal,
released around the same time, attributed similar things to Rosemary,
and also claimed it could remove scars, marks pox on
the skin, that it dispelled pestilence, that it brings comfort
(30:05):
to the year and inward griefs sounds like it's a
cold weather kind of I don't know, comfort to the year.
It could be in a lot of things. I guess
it could be, but it does, but it does sound
very New Year's ish, right, right, right right. Since the
eighteenth century, Rosemary has been placed on Shakespeare's tomb on
his birthday, and this is probably because of Ophelia's line
(30:26):
from Hamlet when she says Rosemary is for remembrance. Yeah, yeah,
that's Act four, seen five. Um, she she's she's got
this kind of like like bouquet of herbs hypothetically and flowers,
and she says, there's rosemary. That's for remembrance. Pray you love.
Remember Shakespeare also mentioned Rosemary and Romeo and juliet twice. Um.
(30:51):
The nurse uh kind of low key compares Romeo to Rosemary. She's,
I don't know, she's talking about the first letters of words.
It's she's a little bit dotty. It's sort of it's
sort of played for comedy. Um. But uh, also by
the plant savvy friar friar Lawrence UM as a suggested
part of Juliette's funeral ceremony. So yeah, kind of like
(31:15):
all these been connected to funerals for quite some time. Yeah,
absolutely M. Meanwhile, UM, investigation of herbal extracts of things
like rosemary really ramped up starting in the two thousands, UM,
kind of alongside their use in alternative medicines like the
aforementioned a Roman therapy. And rosemary was actually classified into
(31:38):
the Salvia genus only in UM. Prior to that, it
had been considered to belong to a small genus pretty
much all of its own, called Rosemarinus um. And what
happened was researchers realized that Rosemary shared a most recent
common ancestor with the other species in Salvia, so it
and a few other previously sub genuses were reclassified. Wow
(32:04):
that classification system still on going. Oh yeah yeah, oh yeah,
I know that the taxonomy of all of this is
is so fascinating. And I mean, you know, previously to
like genetics, um, people just were like looking how things
grow and like the physical structures of plants and seeds
(32:25):
and all of that kind of thing. Um, And now
they're like, well, we found these genes that are very
similar to these other genes, and so it's really it's
really cool, it's really fun um and you know, very
deeply nerdy way conversation about right, like like how do
how how did these plants evolve and how did they
relate to each other today and like what should be
considered part of one thing versus part of another thing? Yes?
(32:47):
Pretty cool? Yes, I agree, I think it's pretty cool.
And it's also when you look at etymology, really interesting
about what people thought and why it's so confusing to
as today. Yeah yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, well I guess
that's what we have to say about rosemary for now.
It is um. We do have some listener mail for you.
(33:11):
We do, but first we have one more quick break
for a word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. We're back with snow. It's
(33:36):
envisioning a field of Roovesmary in the wind. Yes, Brittany wrote,
I recently got back from a bucket list trip to
Peru and could not wait to write to you two
about a couple of things. So sorry this email may
get a bit long. First, before we went on the trip,
(33:57):
I got a book about the Spanish conquistors takeover of
the can Empire. Now I always knew they were not
the best people, but I got angry reading parts of
the book. For the entire trip. Any time there was
any mention of the Spanish conquisa doors are, especially Bizarro,
all I could do was hear your voice saying that
guy you have been talking about, Jefferson, And I don't
(34:17):
know if you shake your fists as you say it,
but in my mind that was what was happening twenty Yes. Second,
the reason we went to Peru was to complete a
hike on an old Incan trail to Machu Picchu. The
hike we chose was an eight day, seventy six mile
hike through the Andies. I had to right in because
of the food. I have a dashed pictures, but they
(34:38):
do not do the food we were served justice. I
also added a picture of the amazing chef and the
equipment he had to work with. We joked that we
ate better on the trail than we would have if
we stayed in Cusco. We had a chef and a
soux chef along with us and got three course meals
plus afternoon teatime every day. Thank you Tequila Expeditions for
always taking care of us. It was amazing and we
somehow never ate the same thing twice. We decided after
(35:01):
day three they just started showing off a sea picture
of star shaped wand todds, and we were more than
happy to eat the results. They even made one of
our fellow hikers a birthday cake over and open fire.
If you ever get a chance to go to Peru,
the food alone is worth it, let alone all the
other amazing things that are there. I'm still mad about
all the amazing produce they have down there that we
(35:23):
can't get here, which brings me to my next reason
to write in. After we got back from our check
and I checked my podcast. I found out you did
a podcast on Keenea. I could not believe the amazing
timing you had for me on that one. In that podcast,
you mentioned warm drinks but didn't have any examples. Not
sure if you would classify it as a drink. But
one of the things we got for breakfast every morning
(35:44):
was a porridge that we could pour into a cup
and drink. One of them was a keen porridge. We
also had corn being Kanyewa, among others. I'm still trying
to find a recipe to try and get something close
for a different kind of breakfast. Oh so good. All
of that sounds so good. Oh good. Yes, I'm so
(36:05):
glad you had such a wonderful trip. The pictures were
amazing um and the food did look absolutely delicious. I
did something similar when I was in Peru and it
was really really delicious food. They have so much good
food in Peru. And Brittany also sent us a list
(36:25):
of like eight suggestions of topics and they were all good.
So yes, yes, so we always love topic suggestions. We
do have a list. It is quite long, but there
is a list. There is a list, uh yes, and
we're I'm very excited to get to some of those
topics in the future. Yes, yes, um Amy wrote, I
(36:48):
have meant to write in so many times, like after
the Taco Tuesday episode. I grew up in the Midwest
and I would always hear Taco John's commercials on the radio.
I always go over the date with my students and
I will occasion only say it's Taco Tuesday at Taco John's.
My students will of course look at me as if
I were crazy. Secondly, I meant to write after the
(37:08):
asparagus episode. I'm not sure if another listener might have
written in about the fact that Spanish, at least in Spain,
has two different words for asparagus. White asparagus is espagaro
and green asparagus is called triguero. I have never actually
eaten fresh white asparagus. Most white asparagus in Spain is bottled.
It's eaten cold with mayonnaise. I'm not a fan, but
(37:31):
not because of the mayo. I hate the texture of
the bottled asparagus, which I find slimy. I'm in the
minority since it's a popular first course growing up in Minnesota,
we have a fresh asparagus patch next to the garden.
I thought I hated asparagus because my mother's way to
cook it was to boil it. Now, if only she
had thought to grill it was some olive oil, I
would have been a fan. I also meant to write
(37:54):
in after the Paea episode. When I was a student
in Madrid, I lived with an elderly woman who cooked
from my roommate in me. She was a great cook,
but she could not make paea. And she made paea
every Thursday. She could give us a heaping plate, and
I swear I would eat and eat and eat, and
the level would never go down. I grew to dread
those days. It took me years to eat paea again.
(38:15):
At the beginning of January of this year, Madrid was
hit by a freak snowstorm. It hadn't snowed so much
in Madrid for sixty years. All businesses were closed for
at least a day. The people of Madrid enjoyed sledding
and making snowmen. What does this have to do with food?
I saw several people using a piea the pan as
a sled so funny. I've at touched a picture where
(38:36):
you can see the pan stuck in the snow. That's fantastic, Yes, yes,
so much. I almost We had a snow like enough
to sled on here in Atlanta a couple of years back,
(38:59):
and I almost went sledding on my Captain America's shield,
but I was so nervous damage I might do. Yeah, yeah,
to to yourself for the shield, the shield whatever the
good all no sense of preservation? Annie, All right, yeah,
(39:21):
I should I shouldn't have asked. Why did I ask? Uh? Now,
I see you, I see you. I I know, I
know how much that shield means to you. And I
know that you wouldn't want you wouldn't want to break
cap shield so old Sea Bass as I've nicknamed him. Uh.
And I do want to say, I know on here
we've talked before about how we give you listeners cravings
(39:45):
and that it often irks you. Well sometimes you know
you also give us cravings. Oh yeah, when you right in.
And I want all of these foods as well. And
I just we never tried the whitest faraguess and I
really don't want anything to do with this white sparagus
with mayonnaise, but I do I do want to try that.
Although I think I would also find it slimy and
(40:06):
dislike it, but that doesn't make me not want to
try it. I am determined to try white asparagus, craving
for something I've never had. Um. But that's where we are.
I want to try all of these things all the time. Goodness, Yeah,
(40:26):
I yeah, And I don't know, we just we just
need to go. This is where. This is where I
feel like we always, like, like even just in conversation
with each other, we don't get into nearly as much
trouble about like like adding to our list of places
to go as we do when you all right in,
because because we already have plenty of ideas of like
oh yeah, no we have to go here and here
(40:47):
and here and here, but y'all right in. And then
all of a sudden, I'm like, no, I need to
be in Peru today, Like why am I not? Why
am I not in a plane in a plane right now?
Like right, we need to solve this. Yeah, yes, which
we appreciate, Yes, yes, yes, it's a beautiful problem to have.
It is such a wonderful problem to have. Uh So
(41:09):
thanks to both that these listeners are writing to us.
If you would like to write to us. You can
our emails Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at safer pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:31):
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of My Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about Rosemary. Yes, yeah, oh
I take it. I take it by that tone that
you also love a rosemary. I do love a rosemary. Um.
It is one of my very favorite Star Wars drinks
(00:30):
that I've created over this Actually, excuse me, Samantha over
at stuff on you created this strik heck. Yeah, okay.
It's kind of a French seventy five but with a
BlackBerry rosemary muddle kind of and then a strig of
rosemary garnish. That sounds yeah, that sounds really nice. Yeah,
(00:50):
it's the tattooing sunset. Very good. Um. But one of
my primary memories is like when I was in college
and I was you know that you had those tiny
on the hall of the one kitchen and my roommate
we had a bunch of mishaps in that one kitchen,
and one of the mishaps was we put way too
(01:11):
much rosemary and something, but we were also both way
too cheap to throw it away, just like they're like
fine sault loving this. Yeah essentially yeah, um, And Also,
my family used to go biking Rosemary Dunes, which I
believe it is. If it's not a National park, because
(01:32):
state park, it's something, um, and it's in Gulf Shores, Alabama,
and we've been doing it for years and years and years.
I think it took us approximately five years to figure
out that it was called Rosemary Dunes because there was
rosemary growing in the dunes, which is all sounded pretty right.
Sure you're like, oh, yes, Rosemary Dunes, and then you're like, oh,
(01:54):
those are dunes and they have rosemary and them cool. Yeah,
pretty straight to the pool. Right, Yeah, that's right right
what it says on the tin. I also love some rosemary. Um.
I I grow rosemary in my garden and forget that
I have it all the time. And uh, to be fair,
(02:17):
I my poor little scraggly rosemary plant is not doing
its very best. Uh. I'm not sure what to do
to make it better at this juncture. Uh, It's okay,
we're we're all. We're all a little scraggly these days,
to be honest. Truth. You know what can help with that?
(02:38):
Rosemary a very pleasant smell. It's strong. Though. This is
when people are like, are you okay, over at favor
five or five or five? Doing just all right? M
oh goodness, perhaps we should get to our could please
(03:00):
bring us to our question, Annie, I will allow it,
I will okay, all right. Rosemary? What is it? Well,
rosemary is a type of herb that grows on an
evergreen shrub that's perennial in temperate climates, meaning it does
not shed its leaves seasonally, and it will keep growing
(03:22):
year after year. It's a small leaves are deep green
on the top and white on the bottom for a
kind of silvery effect because it's it's partially rolled up
into these sort of pine needle like shapes. But but
they're a bit more tender than than pine needles. The
leaves are very fragrant. Yes, if you just brush up
against them, you'll come away with the scent. And that
scent and flavor is a woody and savory and piney
(03:46):
and a little lemony and a little pikeant um. It's
sort of like a it's sort of like being in
a in a pine forest on a on a on
a warm but crisp fall day. It's it's like a
I didn't I didn't write this one down. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what it's like. I feel like that
was pretty good. Does that? Does that cover it? It's
(04:08):
somehow both like warming and cooling. It's sort of you know,
it reminds me of cooler weather. Yeah, but I associate
it with more of a warm, warm foods and warming sensation. Sure. Yeah,
well it's it's got both them both. Some camphor in it,
which tends to be like a like a cooling sensation,
um oil in your mouth, and it also has some
(04:30):
of those right, like like like woody and lemony kind
of notes that we associate with like summer and uh
kind of like bright warming flavors, right, um so, so yeah, yeah,
it's it's both both at the same time. It's going like,
oh man, I wish I could eat a pine tree,
and then you did all good for you, you know
I immediately and like that sounds terrible for your teeth,
(04:53):
But do you want to eat a pine tree then
darn it. Yeah it's not. It's not a pine tree,
um uh it is. It is an herbal shrub. The
plant can grow up to about six ft that's two
meters tall, but it's more often around half that and
right yeah, yeah, really really kind of kind of scruffy um.
With these small leaves growing off of tall branching stalks,
(05:16):
it'll put off small clusters of flowers in white to pink,
to purple to blue, which when pollinated, will produce these
small seed pods that could be harvested to plant more rosemary.
With um. You can also grow new plants from cuttings.
As with many Mint family herbs, the botanical name is
Salvia rose mariness, which means it is distantly related to
(05:37):
lots of other herbs like sage, time and chia and
the right. It is in the mint family um lamiasi.
A rosemary, like many of its aromatic cousins, developed a
couple of really cool like growth and or defense mechanisms
along its evolutionary path um. One of those is that
(05:58):
the surface of each leaf, or rather a think like
the under surface, has these tiny hair like structures extending
out of it that are called tricombs, and these physically
prevent insects and microbes from reaching the surface of the
plant and eating it, which you know the plant doesn't
want them to do. Another of these mechanisms is that
(06:18):
it produces just a lot of oils that contain an
impressive density of compounds called terpenoids UM, which often act
as fungicides, insecticides and anti microbials UM. And those little tricombs,
the little hairs trap we globs of those oils on
the surface of the leaves UM, like like defensive water balloons. UM.
(06:41):
So if a microbe or an insect reaches through the hairs,
it's likely to get doused in these oils that are
not good for them. But we are a food show. UM.
Those oils that are toxic to pests and can even
put off some mammals from eating a plant are things
that we have decided taste and smell delicious. Indeed, you
(07:03):
can't stomp us. No, no, you just try rosemary. You
just try. Now that's a challenge. Oh no, um uh. Yes.
Around the world people put rosemary and all kinds of dishes.
It is most often paired with savory flavors, but is
sometimes added to sweet dishes or drinks to add like
(07:25):
a savory contrast in there. The leaves are the main
part of the plant that's used culinarily UM and can
be harvested by trimming off branches and just using them
a whole, just like laying them on top of meats
or vegetables as they roast, and letting the oils drip
on down, or in a bouquet garni, which is a
sort of bundle of herbs that you would steep in
soups and stews, or you can separate the leaves off
(07:48):
of the stems, chop them up fine, or dry them
out and grind them into a powder. Rosemary is a
common addition to meats like lamb and chicken and pork, um,
savory breads, root vegetables and potatoes, dairy condiments like butter
or goat, cheese, spreads or yogurt, anything that you're gonna
put lemon into. It goes pretty well with because it's
got some of the same flavor compounds in there. Um.
(08:10):
It sometimes gets pigeonholed as like a winter or holiday
herb for a number of reasons that we'll get into
more in our history section. But also I mean like
it's evergreen in a lot of places, so you can
like go pick some during a cold winter, as you
cannot with many other herbs. Yeah yeah, um. You can
also extract the essential oils and use those um for
(08:33):
this purpose. Rosemary is grown to the stage where it
flowers because the buds contain a lot of those essential oils.
These are also used in perfumes and other cosmetics, and
rosemary is planted just as an ornamental in gardens here
in Atlanta. Walking around in some of our like like
century plus old neighborhoods, you find it a lot on
(08:53):
the hilly slopes of front lawns because it's really good
at gripping into soil and hold again in place, and
it's yeah, I'm gonna have to keep an eye out
for that. I don't think I've ever been like, oh Rosemary,
Oh my goodness. I clock it everywhere I go in
case I ever need like emergency rosemary sneak onto someone's
law and steel the rosemary. I I've definitely taken rosemary
(09:17):
from people's lawns before. I haven't gone up on only
from like sidewalk access, but I've definitely plucked rosemary stocks
from random neighbors lawns before because I've just been like, oh, Rosemary,
I could use some of that. Now I know what
those wanted posters are, rosemary thief. It's only when there's
(09:38):
a clearly like overabundance of rosemary. I would never like
like look at like a little seedling and go like
ha ha ha ha, I have this this rosemary for myself.
Oh no, sounds like you were pretty ready with deflection
and story. Well, moving on for perhaps legal purposes, um
(10:08):
uh do do to um some of the properties of
of rosemary extracts UM, namely namely antioxidant properties. Rosemary extract
is also approved as an additive for food preservation in
the European Union and some other areas. Cool. Well, speaking of,
(10:29):
I guess what about the nutrition You're generally not, as
with most herbs, eating enough rosemary to make like a
huge nutritive difference, um, Because yeah, rosemary packs a huge
flavor bang for its caloric buck. A little goes a
long way, as Annie um herbed around and found out.
(10:50):
But but if you are eating the actual leaves, they're
they're high in fiber, have a smattering of vitamins and minerals,
and rosemary has been used in traditional medicines and folk
medicines for all kinds of things forever UM and modernly
it's extracts have been found in fact to have all
kinds of properties um anti cancer, anti diabetic, anti inflammatory,
(11:14):
antina size upt of pain, anti diuretic, anti blood clot,
anti ulcer and protective of the liver and brain and
UH in the in the latter case, there's a bunch
of really interesting research into UM. How like, the combination
of compounds in rosemary, including antioxidant and anti inflammatory, along
(11:37):
with some others, may be particularly helpful in fighting degenerative
brain diseases like Alzheimer's, which are caused by brain cell death. UM.
There was even some research conducted with to be fair,
of very small sample of subjects that indicated that rosemary
oil aromatherapy may have a positive impact on immediate memory
(11:57):
recall UM hypothetically by preventing the breakdown of this one
particular neurotransmitter and the and this neurotransmitter is one that
helps your brain remember to like, like go check the
toast before it burns, that kind of thing. Oh I
like that neurotransmitter. Yeah, me too. I don't I don't
have enough of it. I don't think maybe I should
(12:18):
be diffusing some rosemary essential oil into my home at
all times. Who knows, it's a nice smell, as I said,
it is. I like it. I like it, And we
do have a couple numbers for you. We do, not
too many, but a few. Yeah. So, I've read some
differing numbers about the size of the global market for rosemary.
(12:41):
It's it's extracts are a lot more closely followed than
its use fresh, which tends to be a pretty local
sort of thing. Um. Rosemary did originate around the Mediterranean Sea,
and to this day is most produced in that region.
As much as of rosemary that's destined for essential oil
is grown in Tunisia and Morocco. And I think that
(13:02):
the US uses or maybe processes and then sells most
of that. I couldn't, I wasn't super clear, and I
was unwilling to spend five thousand dollars on a market
research report to find out. But like, but like, up
to a third of rosemary essential oil is bound for
the US in one way or another. Huh. Yeah interesting.
(13:22):
I think, um, grain of salt, y'all. Uh. And I've
read estimates that rosemary's global market value was worth two
and fifteen million dollars and growing as of I've also
read that it's expected to grow like really aggressively and
hit over a billion dollars by the end of the year. Wow. Yeah,
(13:46):
So I don't know. I don't know either, people getting
really turned onto rosemary. Yeah, it's right, you know. It's
it's a for for for culinary purposes, for medical purposes,
for cosmetic purposes. Um, it's it's a It is popular
in a number of industries. This is true. And it
(14:07):
has a long history of being popular in a number
of industries. Oh my goodness, it does. And we are
going to get into that after we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So yes.
(14:29):
Rosemary originated in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean over five
thousand years ago. Uh spriggs were found in Egyptian tombs
dating back to three thousand BC. Records suggests that the
Egyptian king Ramsey's the Third offered god Amana at thieves
one hundred and twenty five measures of rosemary. Okay, yes.
(14:51):
Ancient Greek students may have eaten it to try to
boost their memory. Um, and may have worn rosemary garlands
when studying. Example, I'm trying to think if I did
anything like that. I guess there was that whole like
brain food idea when I was a kid where my
mom would be I have an orange this morning or something.
If I had a big test, but I did not
(15:12):
wear any garlands of rosemary. Maybe maybe it's time, Maybe
we should time. It sounds fancy. Rosemary is also very pretty,
so it is right next time we record Laurence, let's show. Okay,
so yeah, into it, into it alright perfect. Ancient Romans
believed that the odor preserved dead bodies and that the
(15:35):
color civilized eternity, sort of like being evergreen maybe um,
And so they used it in in funeral practices, and
it's still used in some funerary practices to this day
and has been across the world. By rosemary had been
introduced to China, and by the ninth century it was
growing in the UK. And yes, it has long been
(15:59):
used for all kinds of things, for distally like improving memory,
as an anti inflammatory and antiseptic for digestive health. Some
sources suggest it may have been burnt in French hospitals
to cleanse and purify the air. Going back to the
ninth century, it was being used for fever and toothache,
and during the sixteenth century it was used for gout,
(16:20):
bad dreams, lost appetite, coughs, and as a toothpaste. Yeah,
when crushed, mixed with Colt's foot and smoked, it was
thought to alleviate asthma and other long conditions. Yeah. Just
over the centuries, it's been used for just about everything,
all kinds of things. Yeah, yeah, I love all of this.
I love that, like anything that was strongly flavored enough
(16:42):
was basically like, well, this must have good properties. Let's
just let's just do it. Yeah, yeah, let's just do it.
They'll just try it for that or that or Yeah.
Certainly plenty designated the plant rosemarness or sea dow because
of where it grows in the Mediterranean. But there's a
lot going on with his name. Yeah, yes, okay, so
(17:05):
legend has it, and this is one of many legends,
but this one has it that the name was an
homage to the virgin Mary because of the color of
the flowers. This color was thought to match the colors
of her clothing. And perhaps people believe, yes, But this
is what gets me. Perhaps people believe that the maximum
height that this the rosemary plant grew matched that of Christ,
(17:27):
or that it lives to thirty three years, the same
age Christ was when he died. Okay, yeah, okay, yep um.
The names for rosemary and other languages reflects similar things.
The Spanish word for rosemary refers to the story of
Virgin Mary resting under a rosemary bush while she made
her way to Egypt. Another similar story about the origin
(17:50):
of the plant's name differs on the details of that,
but Uh instead says that Mary tried to cleanse the
clothes of Christ and then dried them on a quote
evil smelling, but giving the bush the pungent smell we
know today, or that the clothing stand to the flowers
blue instead of the other way around. Sure sure um.
(18:10):
Other names and yet other languages reflect more different mythologies.
UM of Portuguese word derived from a Scandinavian word um,
implies that it is a plant of the elves, an
elven plant um, and apparently Sicilian stories told of m
fairies using rosemary flowers as cradles for their little fairy babies.
(18:35):
Oh yeah, my child, and you got very excited about that.
Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I was thinking about all my
favorite illustrated versions of them bolina um and as a
sort of botanical cross reference, um. The the shape of
a rosemary's flowers if you've ever seen one, or if
you can go google it right now. Um has this
(18:56):
sort of like this sort of like cup shape with
this kind of like the goodness. I'm forgetting my botanical terms,
but but one of the flower bits kind of closes
over the bottom of the flower pedals over the bottom
lip of the flower, so that when a bee goes
in to get the good stuff, it rubs. It's it's
plants sexy bits on the back of the bee to
(19:16):
help better to help better spread. Yeah, wow, plants sexy bits. Yeah,
that only the technical terms here on savor. Yeah, this
is what you get when Lauren doesn't write down her notes.
I liked it. I have The bees do too, from
what I understand, they do like Rosemary. Yeah, yeah, they do.
(19:38):
They do goodness? Please please would you continue any I
get I feel like this is the second time I'm
getting you out of a hole. I owe you, my dude,
I owe you. UM. I also found one article claiming
that the name Rosemary comes from Rosa marina, which was
(19:59):
this myth from medieval times about a girl born from
a specific type of bush, but she was only born
when it was watered with dragon's blood, and that sounds
like a fantastic story to me. Yes, I would have
loved that as well when I was a kid. Perhaps
all of these naming legends are tales. Give you the
(20:21):
idea that rosemary has a long history when it comes
to symbolism, because it absolutely does, whether it's remembrance, consistency, fidelity,
loyalty and friendship or all those things. Because of this,
Elizabethans used it as a token at weddings and funerals,
and according to some sources that may have even been
used to keep witches at bay um and some believed
(20:44):
it attracted fairies. Yeah, yeah, there was an old English
saying that quote rosemary grows best where the mistress is master,
because yeah, I know, because of its popularity in kitchen
guard ends. And this is the saying that originated in
eight seventy UM and it was first recorded uh coined
(21:08):
by Treasury of Botany John Lindley. And because of this,
men of the house sometimes destroyed or damaged rosemary plants
that were flourishing, believing that it meant they had lost
control of the household. Oh, which was very silly that
in my opinion, in my modern day opinion, that's right, right, modernly,
(21:32):
that would not be the first thing that I would
try to remedy a perceived imbalance of power in a household.
But unless Rosemary was very involved, that would be a
specific situation. Though. Yeah, that's like, that's like a movie
I moving on, Moving on. Rosemary is still used in
(21:52):
Australia in a n Z A c R on Zac
and remembered stay because of how well it grows on
the gallophole the peninsula. During the Middle Ages, some brides
may have worn a crown of rosemary, while the groom
and guest wore a sprig of it, or even a
ribbon branch with rosemary, to represent love, fidelity, and loyalty,
and perhaps from there, from all of this it became
(22:15):
kind of symbolic of a love charm. Young people might
have tapped each other with a sprig of rosemary, and
if the flower opened when tapped, it meant that they
were going to fall in love. Yeah. Newlyweds might plant
a branch of rosemary on their wedding day and if
it group was supposed to be a good omen I'm
(22:36):
guessing if it didn't not, a good open spriggs might
be placed in linen's to encourage fidelity, put in dolls
to attract lovers, um, just all kinds of things. According
to some more, eating rosemary on the eve of st
Agnes or January will either ease the hearts of someone
(22:57):
struck with unrequited love, usually a girl, or if you're
a girl and a virgin, you might take a shower,
put a rosemary sprig under your pillow, say sat Agnes.
That's to lover's kind. Come ease the trouble of my
mind before falling asleep and go to bed before midnight.
Has to be before midnight. Dreams of your future husband.
(23:19):
And if that dream is blurry, then that's his him.
You can't see his face, that's it, okay. But if
the face is clear, that's not that guy. So don't
waste your time with that fool. Oh jeez, this is
all right. Yeah, I know we've talked about this before.
This is the kind of stuff I would do when
(23:39):
I was younger. UM. More modern iterations allow for the
use of an image of rosemary on your phones lock
screened UM, or a printed picture placed under your pillow
as opposed to the real thing. So a picture of
rosemary as opposed to real rosebery see, I'm just I'm
(24:01):
really caught up on this whole thing where like if
you if you can see a dude, it's not that dude.
But if you can't see a dude, then it's that dude.
Because if you can't see him, then who is he?
That's the intrigue, Lauren. It's almost like it doesn't really work.
(24:24):
Although hey, like, like I appreciate using herbs to cause
cautionary dreams about who you shouldn't marry. That's cool, you know,
I bet it's a I'm probably thinking way too deeply
about this, but it is like Halloween season, so that
I have been. But it's probably like, you know, you
need to you have to project onto the blurry face,
(24:47):
the face of the person you want. You need to
get to the bottom of it. There you go, that
is the message. Yeah, no one's gonna give you the answer. Yeah, exactly,
do the work. Do the work, to the work. We've
gotten to the bottom of this. But this whole practice
originated in eighteen hundreds, England. The prayers are from John
(25:11):
Keats's nineteen poem The Eve of st Agnes. Love it,
I love it too. According to one thing I read
another English tradition goes as follows, dips briggs of rosemary
into a mixture of wine, rum, gin, vinegar and water
inside a glass bowl must be glass. On the eve
of St. Magdalen, meet with two other young girls, each
(25:32):
less than twenty one years of age. The rosemary spriggs
then are pinned to their tunics, and each girl takes
three SIPs of the rosemary tonic, then rest in the
same bed without speaking. The dreams that follow will be prophetic. Ah.
I love this kind of stuff so much. Why don't speak? Definitely,
(25:55):
don't don't even look at each other. This certain it
was not invented by parents who about to have a
sleepover and just wanted just really wanted a quiet night.
I love how many urban legends when you get to
the bottom of them, or like, go home and don't
cause any trouble, get good grades, don't call trouble. Got it?
(26:20):
Just listen to your parents, would you? Yeah. Another rosemary
legend goes that rosemary has the ability to restore youth.
It tells the tale of a queen who took a
rosemary bath three times a day, causing her old flesh
to fall off and leaving behind a quote young and
tender layer. Ah, and this might relate to a real
(26:45):
perfume that was used that we're going to talk about
in just a second. Yes, another fascinating thing. Um And
another suspicion from the sixteenth century claimed that rosemary only
grew in the gardens of the righteous. There you go,
it's my righteous garden. But yes, stepping back a bit,
(27:11):
a thirty five see Imperial Library of Vienna document contained
a recipe calling for a distillation of lavender, myrtle and
rosemary that tasted like honey called hungry water um allegedly
used to cure Hungarian Queen Elizabeth paralysis, and after that
it went on to become really popular in the south
(27:31):
of France. Yeah, and there's all sorts of legends about
this um. I couldn't get to the actual bottom of them,
but right, Uh, Hungry water is said to have been
right to be to have been invented by or for
um a Hungarian queen, possibly Isabella um and that it
(27:54):
possibly like restored her youth or or made her so
glad worstly beautiful at the age of like seventy or
seventy five, that that that a like twenty five year
old prince asked her hand in marriage, or that she
bathed in it every day, or that I don't know
that all of this, all of this stuff, but one
(28:14):
way or another, Um, rosemary and um distilled alcohol perfumes
were from what I can tell, quite popular for a
hot minute in Europe. Yes, that is what. That is
what I garnered from this. Um. Other herbs were involved
as well, That's all I got. Yeah, I do love
(28:38):
how many like legends and lore we're getting to talk
about in this episode. Yeah, it's fun. It is. During
medieval times, some pockets of France may have used rosemary
as part of their embalming practices. For a period after
the sixteenth century and then onward, rosemary was used as
(28:58):
a Christmas tree type of thing in Europe okay, though
it was eventually replaced by pine trees and points that
he is. Around the same time, the Gerard herbal claimed
that rosemary could treat okay, here we go, could treat
bloody diarrhea issues in the brain, in the head, that
it quickens the senses and proves the memory. That it
(29:18):
could quote take it away stench of the mouth and
breath and make it it very sweet. Um that when
worn as a garland, it could prevent the brain from
being stuffed with cold humors, that it restores speech to
those who have been possessed, that it could cure jaundice,
cure stoppages of the liver, and lukaria. That when the
flowers were mixed with sugar, it comforted the heart, made
(29:41):
you marry, quickened your spirits, and made you livelier, which
sounds nice. Yeah, sounds very nice. Sure. The cold Pepper herbal,
released around the same time, attributed similar things to Rosemary,
and also claimed it could remove scars, marks pox on
the skin, that it dispelled pestilence, that it brings comfort
(30:05):
to the year and inward griefs sounds like it's a
cold weather kind of I don't know, comfort to the year.
It could be in a lot of things. I guess
it could be, but it does, but it does sound
very New Year's ish, right, right, right right. Since the
eighteenth century, Rosemary has been placed on Shakespeare's tomb on
his birthday, and this is probably because of Ophelia's line
(30:26):
from Hamlet when she says Rosemary is for remembrance. Yeah, yeah,
that's Act four, seen five. Um, she she's she's got
this kind of like like bouquet of herbs hypothetically and flowers,
and she says, there's rosemary. That's for remembrance. Pray you love.
Remember Shakespeare also mentioned Rosemary and Romeo and juliet twice. Um.
(30:51):
The nurse uh kind of low key compares Romeo to Rosemary. She's,
I don't know, she's talking about the first letters of words.
It's she's a little bit dotty. It's sort of it's
sort of played for comedy. Um. But uh, also by
the plant savvy friar friar Lawrence UM as a suggested
part of Juliette's funeral ceremony. So yeah, kind of like
(31:15):
all these been connected to funerals for quite some time. Yeah,
absolutely M. Meanwhile, UM, investigation of herbal extracts of things
like rosemary really ramped up starting in the two thousands, UM,
kind of alongside their use in alternative medicines like the
aforementioned a Roman therapy. And rosemary was actually classified into
(31:38):
the Salvia genus only in UM. Prior to that, it
had been considered to belong to a small genus pretty
much all of its own, called Rosemarinus um. And what
happened was researchers realized that Rosemary shared a most recent
common ancestor with the other species in Salvia, so it
and a few other previously sub genuses were reclassified. Wow
(32:04):
that classification system still on going. Oh yeah yeah, oh yeah,
I know that the taxonomy of all of this is
is so fascinating. And I mean, you know, previously to
like genetics, um, people just were like looking how things
grow and like the physical structures of plants and seeds
(32:25):
and all of that kind of thing. Um, And now
they're like, well, we found these genes that are very
similar to these other genes, and so it's really it's
really cool, it's really fun um and you know, very
deeply nerdy way conversation about right, like like how do
how how did these plants evolve and how did they
relate to each other today and like what should be
considered part of one thing versus part of another thing? Yes?
(32:47):
Pretty cool? Yes, I agree, I think it's pretty cool.
And it's also when you look at etymology, really interesting
about what people thought and why it's so confusing to
as today. Yeah yeah, absolutely, yes, yes, well I guess
that's what we have to say about rosemary for now.
It is um. We do have some listener mail for you.
(33:11):
We do, but first we have one more quick break
for a word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you. We're back with snow. It's
(33:36):
envisioning a field of Roovesmary in the wind. Yes, Brittany wrote,
I recently got back from a bucket list trip to
Peru and could not wait to write to you two
about a couple of things. So sorry this email may
get a bit long. First, before we went on the trip,
(33:57):
I got a book about the Spanish conquistors takeover of
the can Empire. Now I always knew they were not
the best people, but I got angry reading parts of
the book. For the entire trip. Any time there was
any mention of the Spanish conquisa doors are, especially Bizarro,
all I could do was hear your voice saying that
guy you have been talking about, Jefferson, And I don't
(34:17):
know if you shake your fists as you say it,
but in my mind that was what was happening twenty Yes. Second,
the reason we went to Peru was to complete a
hike on an old Incan trail to Machu Picchu. The
hike we chose was an eight day, seventy six mile
hike through the Andies. I had to right in because
of the food. I have a dashed pictures, but they
(34:38):
do not do the food we were served justice. I
also added a picture of the amazing chef and the
equipment he had to work with. We joked that we
ate better on the trail than we would have if
we stayed in Cusco. We had a chef and a
soux chef along with us and got three course meals
plus afternoon teatime every day. Thank you Tequila Expeditions for
always taking care of us. It was amazing and we
somehow never ate the same thing twice. We decided after
(35:01):
day three they just started showing off a sea picture
of star shaped wand todds, and we were more than
happy to eat the results. They even made one of
our fellow hikers a birthday cake over and open fire.
If you ever get a chance to go to Peru,
the food alone is worth it, let alone all the
other amazing things that are there. I'm still mad about
all the amazing produce they have down there that we
(35:23):
can't get here, which brings me to my next reason
to write in. After we got back from our check
and I checked my podcast. I found out you did
a podcast on Keenea. I could not believe the amazing
timing you had for me on that one. In that podcast,
you mentioned warm drinks but didn't have any examples. Not
sure if you would classify it as a drink. But
one of the things we got for breakfast every morning
(35:44):
was a porridge that we could pour into a cup
and drink. One of them was a keen porridge. We
also had corn being Kanyewa, among others. I'm still trying
to find a recipe to try and get something close
for a different kind of breakfast. Oh so good. All
of that sounds so good. Oh good. Yes, I'm so
(36:05):
glad you had such a wonderful trip. The pictures were
amazing um and the food did look absolutely delicious. I
did something similar when I was in Peru and it
was really really delicious food. They have so much good
food in Peru. And Brittany also sent us a list
(36:25):
of like eight suggestions of topics and they were all good.
So yes, yes, so we always love topic suggestions. We
do have a list. It is quite long, but there
is a list. There is a list, uh yes, and
we're I'm very excited to get to some of those
topics in the future. Yes, yes, um Amy wrote, I
(36:48):
have meant to write in so many times, like after
the Taco Tuesday episode. I grew up in the Midwest
and I would always hear Taco John's commercials on the radio.
I always go over the date with my students and
I will occasion only say it's Taco Tuesday at Taco John's.
My students will of course look at me as if
I were crazy. Secondly, I meant to write after the
(37:08):
asparagus episode. I'm not sure if another listener might have
written in about the fact that Spanish, at least in Spain,
has two different words for asparagus. White asparagus is espagaro
and green asparagus is called triguero. I have never actually
eaten fresh white asparagus. Most white asparagus in Spain is bottled.
It's eaten cold with mayonnaise. I'm not a fan, but
(37:31):
not because of the mayo. I hate the texture of
the bottled asparagus, which I find slimy. I'm in the
minority since it's a popular first course growing up in Minnesota,
we have a fresh asparagus patch next to the garden.
I thought I hated asparagus because my mother's way to
cook it was to boil it. Now, if only she
had thought to grill it was some olive oil, I
would have been a fan. I also meant to write
(37:54):
in after the Paea episode. When I was a student
in Madrid, I lived with an elderly woman who cooked
from my roommate in me. She was a great cook,
but she could not make paea. And she made paea
every Thursday. She could give us a heaping plate, and
I swear I would eat and eat and eat, and
the level would never go down. I grew to dread
those days. It took me years to eat paea again.
(38:15):
At the beginning of January of this year, Madrid was
hit by a freak snowstorm. It hadn't snowed so much
in Madrid for sixty years. All businesses were closed for
at least a day. The people of Madrid enjoyed sledding
and making snowmen. What does this have to do with food?
I saw several people using a piea the pan as
a sled so funny. I've at touched a picture where
(38:36):
you can see the pan stuck in the snow. That's fantastic, Yes, yes,
so much. I almost We had a snow like enough
to sled on here in Atlanta a couple of years back,
(38:59):
and I almost went sledding on my Captain America's shield,
but I was so nervous damage I might do. Yeah, yeah,
to to yourself for the shield, the shield whatever the
good all no sense of preservation? Annie, All right, yeah,
(39:21):
I should I shouldn't have asked. Why did I ask? Uh? Now,
I see you, I see you. I I know, I
know how much that shield means to you. And I
know that you wouldn't want you wouldn't want to break
cap shield so old Sea Bass as I've nicknamed him. Uh.
And I do want to say, I know on here
we've talked before about how we give you listeners cravings
(39:45):
and that it often irks you. Well sometimes you know
you also give us cravings. Oh yeah, when you right in.
And I want all of these foods as well. And
I just we never tried the whitest faraguess and I
really don't want anything to do with this white sparagus
with mayonnaise, but I do I do want to try that.
Although I think I would also find it slimy and
(40:06):
dislike it, but that doesn't make me not want to
try it. I am determined to try white asparagus, craving
for something I've never had. Um. But that's where we are.
I want to try all of these things all the time. Goodness, Yeah,
(40:26):
I yeah, And I don't know, we just we just
need to go. This is where. This is where I
feel like we always, like, like even just in conversation
with each other, we don't get into nearly as much
trouble about like like adding to our list of places
to go as we do when you all right in,
because because we already have plenty of ideas of like
oh yeah, no we have to go here and here
(40:47):
and here and here, but y'all right in. And then
all of a sudden, I'm like, no, I need to
be in Peru today, Like why am I not? Why
am I not in a plane in a plane right now?
Like right, we need to solve this. Yeah, yes, which
we appreciate, Yes, yes, yes, it's a beautiful problem to have.
It is such a wonderful problem to have. Uh So
(41:09):
thanks to both that these listeners are writing to us.
If you would like to write to us. You can
our emails Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at safer pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(41:31):
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
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