Pickled thyme?

[helenas]

Does anybody have an idea what could this be?

Pickled thyme was on a menu of some middle eastern australian restaurant.

[Swisskaese]

I think it is a Lebanese condiment, but I am not sure how they use it.

[helenas]

Thanks Swisskaese!

In fact i checked the Kalustyan's site, found pickled thyme there and immediately mail ordered it, so curious i am

[Wolfert]

In Turkey and the middle east you find pickles made from certain thymes and oreganos. See page 147 in my eastern mediterranean cookbook for a recipe using the oregano pickle (imported by Baroodi, and available at kalustyans) in a salad with fresh tomatoes and onions.

Actually, it isn't organo at all, it is thymba spicata, a pungent assertive herb that is often confused with herbs in the same thyme, oregano, marjoram, savory family.

You can grow your own thymba spicata by purchasing plants from well sweep herb farm in new jersey.

Edited June 2, 2004 by Wolfert (log)

[FoodMan]

this type of "thyme" -called sa'atar in Lebanon- grows wild all over the hill sides and we used to pick it when it is still nice and green and use it -just like Wolfert mentioned- as a salad with tomatoes, onions, lemon juice and olive oil. It is usually served wrapped in flat mountain bread or pita bread. Many families pickled the green plants that usually looked a little like Rosemary and serevd them the same way during the winter months. I used to love eating this salad with a handful of homemade french fries wrapped in the bread as well.

Elie

[Behemoth]

A follow-up question -- we also used to do a somewhat similar pickled seaweed when I was a kid in Lebanon. Any idea what kind of seaweed it was? Obviously the same stuff that was stuck to the rocks on the beach, but I don't think it looked like kelp, which would have been my first guess. Do you know if any company has bothered to package this? I was surprised to find the jars of thyme pickle when I came here, I thought that was fairly esoteric.

I too used to pick zaatar with my grandmother, that wild oregano smell is something I can call up from memory.

[Wolfert]

By any chance was the green called snan? In Morocco, we used to gather glassul, a type of glasswort, on the rocks along the atlantic. I think it was called snan in the middle east.

[Behemoth]

I honestly don't remember. I would have to ask my dad...I don't think it was called snan though, because that would be a pretty good mnemonic (as in, teeth). But the names of these types of things differs so much by dialect & region. And then add a romanization in there and I am completely confused. For a while in your book I couldn't figure out what kind of fish "Hut" was (rhymed with rut) --- then I remembered that North African (& gulf?) arabs refer to fish as "Hout" which for us Levantines would be whale I guess.

My father was trying at one point to collect accounts of different medicinal herbs and plants, and even just going by classical arabic the names varied so much it was really unwieldy. He found an account of corn from the 1600's though -- we had thought it was introduced from the Americas, but maybe not. Or else they meant a different thing. Weird, huh? Anyway, I just emailed him. I will let you know what he says

[gingerly]

He found an account of corn from the 1600's though -- we had thought it was introduced from the Americas, but maybe not.

others seem to think so too..

there's a link at the bottom to pics of the temple sculpture.i've seen it and can confirm it looks just like corn!

[Behemoth]

He found an account of corn from the 1600's though -- we had thought it was introduced from the Americas, but maybe not.

others seem to think so too..

there's a link at the bottom to pics of the temple sculpture.i've seen it and can confirm it looks just like corn!

Hey, cool! I will forward that to him, thanks. Ha, this thread is going so off topic at this point, but it is really interesting! There's not that much to say about thyme pickle anyways. It's good. Eat it.

[helenas]

My Kalustyan's order came in no time, and thanks to Paula's pointer, i experienced a pleasure of her salad tonight.

As it's a big jar, many thanks for adding the storing instructions to the recipe published in the book.

[Behemoth]

Just to update -- my dad very helpfully informs me it is called "hasheeshet el-bahr" which literally translates to, um, "sea-weed". He is going to look up the scientific name, and in the meantime as always happens when I ask about anything food related, I am getting a jar mailed to me from some relative