Sage

The only thing I knew about SAGE was that it was used for stuffing on Thanksgiving.  You bought this tiny spice bottle of dried sage from the grocery store once a decade.  That was it.

So I moved to Jerusalem and we decided to host a Thanksgiving gathering for many of the internationals we met.  I was given the stuffing recipe and found I needed to buy sage.  I had no idea what it looked like or smelled like and had a time trying to find it, but I was successful!  The smell was so familiar.  I knew it… just could not place it.  It haunted me and I would smell it over and over trying to recall where I smelled it before.  At the time, I volunteered at a college in Bethlehem.  Everyday they had tea at 10:00 am.  All staff and students would gather for a quater hour and enjoy hot tea and fellowship.  The tea… that was it.  They used SAGE as an additional herb in their tea.

At this point a flood of sensory memories came back to me… Years ago I visited Albania.  A good friend was living there and we loved the tea so much that we all brought home this Albanian Wild Mountain Tea mix – picked from the hills by the village women.  My friend never knew what is was until I figured it out.  It was wild sage.

Last spring, while hiking through the Valley of Tekoa, I noticed wild sage growing throughout the valley.  The mystery has been solved.  AND… excitingly, sage is sold here in HUGE bunches… both fresh and dried.

So my point is… sage is a fabulous herb that has so much more use than a tablespoon or two for Thanksgiving stuffing.  Sage makes amazing tea!  It can be mixed alone with hot water or added to black tea.

Living overseas has opened my eyes to uses and ways of cooking food that I otherwise never would have known.  So I share them with you!

For more information about the medicinal and remidial use of sage, check this site out!

http://www.herbwisdom.com/herb-sage.html

Or here for recipe ideas – 45 uses for fresh sage!

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2010/05/45_things_to_do_with_fresh_sage.php