Amanda Hesser’s sorrel-potato galette. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer In an entry on sorrel in her encyclopedia of “Uncommon Fruits & Vegetables,” food writer Elizabeth Schneider noted that “Americans seem to have an on-again off-again affair with the sharply acid green leaves to which the French have been devoted as long as there has been a France.” These days, that relationship is mostly “off,” at least as far as I can tell.
And while it may be overly ambitious of me, I hope to change that, if not in the whole of the country, then at least in my own corner of Maine. Why? Because cultivated garden sorrel – an early spring green in Maine, here at a time that little else local is around – is easy to cook with and a pleasure to eat. If my own enthusiasm isn’t persuasive, nor sorrel’s durable French culinary pedigree, perhaps you’ll be swayed by Kyle Robinson, chef and co-owner of Chez Rosa in Kennebunkport.
“I personally love it. I have no idea why we (Americans) don’t love it,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s phenomenal.
It adds this pop of acidity, this pop of flavor. It just really brightens up dishes. I’m not quite sure why it hasn’t gained more popularity, more traction in cuisine in the United States.
” Sorrel comes in dozens of varieties, according to Alan Davidson in “The Penguin Companion to Food,” which “have been eaten as green vegetables since ancient times.” In his own food dictionary, “Food,” Waverly Root .