Garden Sorrel

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Garden Sorrel makes a piquant green sauce for meat.
Garden Sorrel makes a piquant green sauce for meat.
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Finches love sorrel seed.
Finches love sorrel seed.
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The adult garden sorrel plant looks something like this.
The adult garden sorrel plant looks something like this.

Lately, more and more people have begun to understand just how limited in both variety and nutritional value our “modern” diets have become. This realization has sparked a new and widespread interest in the culinary and therapeutic uses of herbs, those plants which — although not well-known today — were honored “guests” on the dinner tables and in the medicine chests of our grandparents’ homes just one short generation ago. In this regular feature, MOTHER EARTH NEWS will examine the availability, cultivation, and benefits of our “forgotten” vegetable foods and remedies — and hopefully prevent the loss of still another bit of an ancestral lore.

Few herbs demonstrate the need for scientific classification and nomenclature as well as do the sorrels (members of the Rumex species). Their common names overlap, and the descriptions found in garden books are often unclear — especially if they’re unaccompanied by good pictures.

Garden sorrel (R. acetoso) is also called common sorrel, French sorrel, cuckoo’s sorrow, and green sauce. It’s one of the two Rumex species regularly cultivated, the other being R. acutatus (which is also known, unfortunately, as French sorrel). The two share the same basic characteristics, but R. acutatus has a somewhat milder, juicier, and smaller leaf. Like all true sorrels these two have a high binoxalate of potash content, which makes their foliage strongly acidic. Because of this, one should “go easy” when ingesting the plants or their juices because the consumption of large quantities may result in internal irritation.

  • Published on May 1, 1983
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