Sorrel

• 1. Introduction

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  Sorrel, known to botanists as Rumex acetosa, sits at the center of a famous plate of fish. In 1962 the Troisgros brothers invented a dish of salmon escalope in sorrel sauce, and it became an emblem of French nouvelle cuisine. The flavor that carries the dish comes from a humble meadow plant. Gardeners also know it as common sorrel, garden sorrel, spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock. What does this plant look like, and why does it separate its sexes so strictly? Where does it grow wild, and who else feeds on it? And how did cooks from India to Armenia to rural Greece each find their own use for its sour leaves?

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• 2. Anatomy of a Meadow Plant

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  At about 60 cm tall, sorrel is a slender perennial with roots that run deep into the soil. Its stems are juicy, and its arrow-shaped leaves rise from a rosette near the ground. Botanists call that arrow shape sagittate.

  The lower leaves measure 7 to 15 cm and hang on long stalks. Each stalk is wrapped at its base by a thin, papery sheath called an ocrea, formed from stipules fused together.

  Higher up the stem, the leaves lose their stalks and grow straight from the stem. These upper leaves frequently turn crimson, which gives a sorrel meadow a reddish tint.

  In early summer the plant sends up whorled spikes of reddish-green flowers, and these deepen to purplish. Sorrel belongs to the family Polygonaceae, and it is dioecious. Stamens and pistils grow on separate plants, so any single sorrel plant carries only one kind of reproductive part.

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• 3. Range and Neighbors

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  Across Europe, from the northern Mediterranean coast up to the north of Scandinavia, sorrel is a regular resident of grassland. It also reaches into parts of Central Asia. The plant tolerates poor soil, which helps explain how widely it spreads.

  People carried it much farther. In parts of New Zealand, Australia and North America it now grows as an introduced species.

  Botanists have named six subspecies: acetosa, ambiguus, arifolius, hibernicus, hirtulus and vinealis. Not all of them are cultivated.

  The blood-vein moth is one creature that depends on sorrel. Its larvae, along with those of several other butterflies and moths, eat the leaves. Aphids feed on the plant too, and so do ordinary snails and slugs with no special taste for it. That leaves the question of why people started eating it as well.

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• 4. Sour Soups and Braided Leaves

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  Sorrel has been cultivated for centuries, and cooks have favored it young. Early leaves and shoots are tender and lemony, and both are high in vitamin C. Older leaves toughen with age. They are puréed into soups and sauces or tossed raw into salads.

  In India, the leaves go into soups or curries made with yellow lentils and peanuts. In Afghanistan, cooks coat them in wet batter and deep fry them as an appetizer. When sorrel is in season during Ramadan, the fried leaves serve to break the fast.

  Armenian households gather the leaves in spring and weave them into braids. The braids dry through the winter. The most common dish is aveluk soup. The dried leaves are rehydrated and rinsed to take out bitterness. Then they are stewed with onions, potatoes, walnuts, garlic and bulgur wheat or lentils, and sometimes sour plums.

  Throughout eastern Europe, wild and garden sorrel make sour soups. The leaves are stewed with vegetables, herbs, meat or eggs. In rural Greece, sorrel joins spinach, leeks and chard in spanakopita.

  French tradition pairs it with fish for a chemical reason. The plant's acidity dissolves thin fish bones, which is why the Troisgros salmon had such a natural partner. The next question is why the word sorrel names a very different drink on the other side of the Atlantic.

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• 5. A Name on Loan

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  In the Caribbean, ask for sorrel and you will be served a sweet hibiscus tea. The drink is commonly made from the roselle flower, which comes from Africa. It shares a name with the Eurasian herb but has no botanical connection to it. The sour meadow plant of Europe and the red flower steeped in Caribbean kitchens simply ended up with the same word.

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