Sage Advice

Food; Sage Advice

By Molly O'Neill

• Nov. 14, 1999

See the article in its original context from November 14, 1999, Section 6, Page 141Buy Reprints

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Once a shaman purified my house with smoke from a bundle of slow-burning sage. For weeks, the place smelled as though it were winding down from a pot party -- at least, that's what I thought at the time. The shaman, who called his ritual ''smudging,'' insisted that the peculiar aroma, probably from the cremated leaves, was the residue of bad energy. In any case, the smell was not Thanksgiving, which had, until this point, been my primary association with sage. Usually deployed in a dried state, the herb was an ingredient that we used to stuff our holiday bird.

Generally, however, Americans have been shy with sage. The resinous flavor of the grayish-green leaves -- hinting at camphor and musk, with a tart, astringent finish -- is strong, even off-putting. Still, in the Midwest, where I grew up, there were chefs who doted on sage with pork. This taste can be regarded as old-fashioned, since the herb was featured more prominently in American cooking during the 18th and 19th centuries than it is today. Yet as Mediterranean cuisine has become more and more familiar to us, sage has been making a comeback.

Although most of the world's best sage comes from Croatia's Dalmatian Coast, the herb is thought to be native to Spain. Long used in Spanish, French and Italian cooking to balance fatty foods like beef and game, it is also a fine counterpart to mild-flavored dishes like the Italian vitello al salvia, or veal with sage.

The word ''sage'' is derived from the Latin word salvia, which means ''safe, whole, healthy.'' In ancient times, sage was viewed as a medical cure-all, at once a diuretic, an antiseptic and a tonic for digestive disorders, liver trouble and headaches; small wonder the plant maintained a premier spot in the herbal apothecary throughout the Middle Ages. It was also thought to be an antiseptic that was particularly effective against colds and sore throats, as well as an expectorant and antidote to fevers, convulsions, excessive swelling and bleeding. A proverb attributed to the medical school in Salerno, ''No man should die if sage is growing in his garden,'' embodies the popular wisdom of the time.