surele

Sorrel comes from Old French surele, derived from sur (sour), which traces back to Frankish *sūr, a Germanic word cognate with English 'sour.' The name is a description and nothing more. The plant tastes sour. It contains oxalic acid, which gives it a sharp, citrus-like bite that has made it useful in cooking for millennia. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all used sorrel, though they called it by different names.

In medieval and early modern European cooking, sorrel was a standard green. Before citrus fruits were widely available in northern Europe, sorrel provided acidity in sauces and soups. The French sauce à l'oseille — sorrel sauce — was a classic accompaniment to fish, particularly salmon and shad. The English used it in green sauces and salads. The word surele entered English as 'sorrel' by the fourteenth century, keeping its French pronunciation mostly intact.

Sorrel declined in popularity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as lemons and vinegar became cheaper and more available. Why grow and harvest a plant for sourness when you can squeeze a lemon? The herb retreated to French regional cooking and kitchen gardens. In the twentieth century, it nearly disappeared from commercial agriculture in most countries.

The farm-to-table movement brought sorrel back. Chefs in the 1990s and 2000s rediscovered it — its bright acidity and the way it melts into a green purée when cooked made it attractive to restaurants looking for forgotten ingredients. Sorrel now appears on menus in New York, London, and Copenhagen. A weed named for being sour became a specialty ingredient, which is a common trajectory for foods that survive long enough.