A Story of Wild Sage

I have a food story from this year's D&D gathering in Santa Fe. It involves foraging and culinary technique!

Among other things, we bought some heirloom carrots -- yellow, orange-red, and purple -- which we planned to trim, rub with olive oil, and roast on the gas-grill. We wanted a green herb to go on it, too, and a friend's daughter suggested that we use some of the wild sage growing around the rental house. Sounds good, right?

A few minutes later, she's back with the wild sage: very narrow, almost blade-like leaves, the right pale green but hardly any sage flavor at all -- just bitter. My friend Bruce decided he was not going to let this get in his way, so he began a series of preps on the sage, bringing them to me to judge. (Lucky me.)

First, he tried sauteeing the leaves in a pan with a little oil. Nope, still bitter.

Then he tried pounding and toasting them dry. Worse! I had to rinse my mouth it was so bitter.

Then he blanched some. Better. Still bitter but showing a little mintiness now. He steeped it for 15 minutes longer. Still kinda lean and sinewy but recognizably sage. Green light.

So, on the carrots it went, along with a little s+p. It was good and we were proud.

Wild American sage (Artemisia tridentata) is a completely different plant from culinary European sage (Salvia officinalis). A. tridentata leaves are sometimes used as folk medicines, but they are toxic if taken internally. That horrible bitter taste was a warning. The blanching probably leached out enough of the toxic essential oils that the result was harmless.

-Paul W.

Now you made me look.

It was definitely not A. tridentata -- doesn't match those pictures at all. This plant was much lower/smaller, rather a lot of twig/stem compared to the volume of leaves, the leaves were small, narrow, no serration, no hairs, single-pointed at the tip. It was not horribly bitter -- other than when the cooking concentrated the flavor -- nor did I taste terpenes (which I know from drinking old riesling).

Unfortunately for this conversation, both Artemisia and Salvia cover a lot of plants. For example, Artemisia includes tarragon and wormwood while Salvia comprises upwards of 1000 species.

I have found "Ask Mr Sage" on a website for a salvia nursery but without a photo I'm not sure it's worthwhile to contact them.

In any case, thank you for being concerned for my well-being!