Example of the Apothecary Sheet in Action: Sarriette/Summer Savory
Let's use the apothecary work sheet on an iconic herb in the Acadian pantry, the Summer Savory (Sarriette d'Γ©tΓ©). This page can help you get some spell-work correspondences due to associations you write within.
I got to know summer savory when I moved to Nova Scotia. Outside the Maritimes, it's not an herb you see often in supermarkets, and if you do, thank you, Farmer John's Herbs! It pairs great with potatoes, different meats, and other root vegetables, and is a staple in the Acadian pantry. How did it become a staple among our people? It's a story emblematic of our displacement and resilience.
The lore often points to the town of Burnt Church, New Brunswick, and the Robichaud family.
The herb made its way from Europe with our French ancestors, and thrived in our 17th century kitchen gardens. Following the capture of Louisbourg by the British in July 1758, Col. James Murray was sent to destroy Acadian settlements in the Miramichi region. On 17 September 1758, Murray reported spending two days in Miramichi Bay looking unsuccessfully for Acadians, but destroying anything he found; one of them being the first stone church built in New Brunswick. No Mi'kmaq or Acadian was safe from those raids. My own family sought refuge in Camp d'EspΓ©rance, along the Miramichi River. It's a region that was rife with starvation, hiding out, and great suffering. (1).
Through the Acadian Expulsion, our gardens were scorched to the ground, and we were forced to either live out in abject poverty and forced service in the American Colonies, or find a way to come back home in secret. Once we did come back to the Maritimes (when we were legally 'allowed' to come back), we were given poor land for cultivation (our previous fertile lands occupied by New England settlers brought in by the Crown and their N-E Protestant co-conspirators), or did subsistence fishing on the isolated coastlines. (1) The sturdy, hardy summer savory plant was still growing in the ditches of neighbouring farms and on rocky highland cliff sides of coastal communities, helping sustain us through the consequential poverty we endured in the nineteenth century into the early-twentieth..
A descendant of the deported Acadians, Jean Prudent Robichaud (1867-1958) supposedly acquired the seeds from a Mi'kmaq woman from the EsgenoΓ΄petitj First Nation at Burnt Church, NB, while he was working on Miβkmaq farms with his draft horse. (2) Both Mi'kmaq and Acadians were forced to compete for meagre resources following the Seven Years' War and the Acadian Expulsion, and as a result, that pre-deportation cooperative relationship soured. It's something I'm hoping gets remediated, as I see examples of really terrible racism and vandalism (I think of the Baie Sainte-Marie lobster fishing rights being challenged by some Acadian/settler fishermen, causing loss of catch/materials/livelihood vehicles in the Sipekne'katik First Nation in 2020, and ongoing to this day.) (4)
This shared history of loss, oppression, forced subsistence agriculture, and the intimacy and comfort of Acadian cooking make it a powerful herb to recall your Acadian ancestors, and to start allyship workings.
It's a plant that is so closely tied to Acadian culture, I wanted to share just how soul-sustaining and cooperative our culture is, courtesy of the University of Maine's Culture Focus page on the Acadians and our cultural values:
- Spirit of cooperation; some Acadians say its from cooperatively building and maintaining miles of dykes; others say it is evident in the number of successful fishing, farming and other economic Co-ops.
- Adapting to and thriving in new circumstances, as evidenced by the maintenance and evolution of Acadian culture in all areas of the world where Acadians live.
- Joyful pleasure in family gatherings and festivities, as evidenced by vibrant music and performances, and by summer family reunions attended by thousands of relatives. (3)
With those key features in mind, Summer Savory can be used in holiday cooking to incite warmth and love, help you in social justice and community efforts to replenish your strength (it being such a hardy plant), and doing spells for adaptability and embracing change.
The following care instructions are taken directly from the Albert County Museum & RR Bennett Centre.
Culinary uses:Β Summer savory is a common herb in Atlantic Canada and associated with holiday food. For example, turkey stuffing for Thanksgiving is made with summer savory rather than sage. Summer savory plays a significant role in Acadian food culture. The herb is the main seasoning in fricot (rabbit or chicken stew). It is also a component of the Herbes de Provence mix.
Crop description:Β Compared to modern varieties of summer savory, Ancienne dβAcadie is a short, stocky plant with a strong flavour. It grows 8-12 inches in height and is more cold-resistant than modern varieties. The plant is quite beautiful with delicate small leaves and a profusion of light purple blooms, which attract bees and other pollinators.
Growing: Direct-seed in the spring after threat of frost has passed. During the season, tip-propagation can be used to acquire new plants. It can be harvested throughout the growing season or just cut in the fall. It pairs well alongside onions and beans, enhancing their flavours, and keeps aphids away.
Seedsaving:Β The variety must be isolated from other varieties of summer savory in order to keep the variety pure. The seeds are tiny and care must be taken while processing seeds to avoid losing the seeds with the chaff. Norbert Robichaud harvests the small seed pods in early November. He crushes and winnows these in a light breeze. He cleans the seeds by rolling the rest of the seed on a sheet of paper, and gently blowing the remaining chaff of the seed. (2)
Another Traditional Seed-Saving Method: Women of the household would cut the twigs from the summer savory bush to dry them for winter. Once cultivated, the leaves of picked off the stems. The stems have little seeds attached to them. The seeds would then be dried, and placed in glass containers for winter storage. Once all the foliage was consumed, the seeds would always be found at the bottom of the glass for sowing in spring!
You can grab your seeds here at ΓcoumΓ¨ne Γdaphon in Saint-Damien, QuΓ©bec, once they're back in stock:
So, here's the page example in English for all of you lovely folks, but I'll write things by hand in French for my own records:
- John Mack Faragher. A Great and Noble Scheme:Β The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland. W.W Norton & Company, 2005. 562 pages.Β
- Albert County Museum & RR Bennett Centre. Summer Savory: The Herb of Acadie.
- https://umaine.edu/teachingcanada/culture-focus-acadia-acadians/
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/commercial-lobster-fishing-indigenous-rights-dfo-9.6995262
