Off Carte —

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
a triptych of humble homegrown edibles
BY Off Carte 

Welcome to Off Carte
—Our column exploring consumption of another kind. Celebrating food in season and the stories that nourish our souls. For we are all consuming together. 

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There is something so satisfying about consuming food that’s been plucked straight from the garden. About nurturing it, watching it grow, and then enjoying the sweet fruits of the earth—just as nature intended. It helps to foster a greater appreciation for our food and for moving with the seasons, letting them guide what winds up on our plate. Moving from the beach to the countryside has recently afforded us the space to grow more of our own food. So, this month, we are musing on a triptych of humble homegrown edibles that have become some of our favourite staple flavours.  

Rosemary 

You came with the house and we’re so glad you’re here. Spindly and spiky, your limbs belie the sweetness of your essence. We steep you in water and use your stalks to adorn our potatoes. If we boil you up, we can also extract the goodness to nourish our skin and our scalps. For you are the medicine woman of our herb garden. 

‘The most fragrant fires are made from dried Mediterranean scrub and the withered shrubs of the maquis’ writes Patience Gray in her iconic book Honey from a Weed. ‘[C]istus, rosemary, Jerusalem sage, lentisk— which burn with the violence of a blow-torch, produce spurts of blue and emerald fire, and a smell of incense.’

Inspired by this approach, we love to throw some rosemary into the pizza oven right before we cook a pie—especially one topped with potato. Like Patience, we are convinced that rosemary is better used fresh than dried. It is, she writes, ‘more perfumed growing in the wild.’ But, if you do wish to preserve the herb, she recommends you ‘cut it very fine with scissors and immediately put it in a glass jar, covering it with olive oil… [then] remember to replenish the jar next time you meet a bush of rosemary.’

Others are not so fond of fair rosemary. Cookbook author Elizabeth David, for example, didn’t care for it, except as an ornamental or functional herb. ‘[Rosemary looks] beautiful in a jug of country flowers’ she concedes, adding that ‘[o]nce, in an out-of-doors Capri café I saw an old woman basting her fish—with a bunch of rosemary dipped in olive oil.’ 

Whether you use yours for stoking a fire, or basting a fish, filling a jug of water, or adding to your skincare routine, though, rosemary is a fine addition to any herb garden, we find. 

Lemon

The lemon tree is heavy with fruit, sagging under the weight of their sunshine bodies. The season’s generous yield calls to mind summertime memories of roadside lemonade stands and citrus sorbet on the Isle of Capri. Of lemon-yellow baby clothes and the golden light of nostalgia. 

Lemon is so fresh and it’s a great way of adding acid to dressings, meat, seafood, or pretty much anything else you’re preparing. A lot of people underestimate the power of acid in cooking, but it is transformative. Like lemon zest in a gremolata, for example, which offers the perfect balancing act to cut through fatty meats. 

A slice of lemon in a glass of water—cold or hot—is also the perfect cure. A rich source of vitamin c and antioxidants, this fruit is incredibly energising and versatile. 

According to Food by Waverley Root, the ancient Romans believed lemon to be an antidote to all poisons. It has also featured prominently throughout the canon of art history, as the author points out. ‘A painter of walls and a maker of mosaics in Pompeii took the liberty of depicting the unknown lemon, and by the fourth century A.D., with the Roman Empire still holding out, not only the fruit but even the tree appeared in mural paintings, perhaps because of the exploit of the Roman agricultural writer Palladius, who is credited with having planted the first lemon tree in Italy in that century.’

Manet, Picasso, and Dalí have all turned their brush to the zesty lemon, but one of our particular favourite works starring the fine fruit is Still Life with Lemons and Pipe by French artist Georges Braque. An endless source of inspiration indeed. 

Chamomile

Your petals smile up at us, as they salute the sun of a morning and bid us adieu as they tuck away to rest of an evening. Once dried up, those very same petals can be steeped in our tea. And their elixir helps us tuck away to rest, in turn. The smiling heart of our garden and the secret to our dreams. 

Chamomile refers to a variety of daisy like plants from the aster family (Asteraceae) that tend to have yellow or white ray flowers and compact yellow pollen. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, chamomile tea has traditionally been ‘used as a tonic and an antiseptic and in many herbal remedies’, while their pretty petals have also been cultivated as garden ornamentals.

I loved reading James Clavell’s Asian Saga and, in Shogun particularly, there is so much about traditional tea ceremonies. The Japanese tea ceremony is said to date back to the 9th century when it was brought back by a Buddhist monk upon his return from China. There, tea had already been an important part of the culture for over a thousand years and was mostly drank for medicinal reasons or used in religious rituals at Buddhist monasteries. 

In Japan, tea later became a status symbol among the warrior class and started to evolve its own rituals, paraphernalia, and distinct aesthetic. I think that these references usually make note of green tea in particular, but chamomile is now used in Chinese herbal medicine as well, for its powerful relaxing effects.

And it totally has a ritualistic sort of reverence in our household. I like to blend the dried leaves with petals of rose or lavender and steep it in one of my grandparent’s teapots. The way it helps to calm anxiety and soothe the woes of the day make it such a special flower to incorporate into our daily practice. 

Chamomile can also be used topically, too, and was especially important to the ancient Celts, who believed its tinctures could heal wounds, relieve pain, and bring comfort to swollen joints. Meanwhile, the Druids associated this plant with the sun and other life-giving forces.

It is like a ray of sunshine and it’s just so sweet that chamomile is basically a tea made from pretty little daisies. It feels very wholesome to enjoy their nectar steeped in hot water.

fin.