sorrel
Meaning of sorrel: One name covering several sour tasting plants, which is why a recipe, a herbal label and a botany text can each mean something different.
Definition of sorrel
Sorrel is a common name for several tart tasting leafy plants of the dock family, most often Rumex acetosa in cooking and Rumex acetosella, the sheep sorrel, in herbal products. The sharp flavor comes from oxalic acid in the leaves. In the Caribbean the same word names an unrelated hibiscus used for a red drink.
Which plant is being described?
The name travels further than the plant does. In a kitchen, sorrel usually means garden sorrel, a broad leafed perennial grown for soups and sauces. In an herbal preparation it more often means sheep sorrel, a smaller weed of poor soil with arrow shaped leaves. Both sit in the same genus as dock, the roadside plant with the thick taproot. In Jamaica and much of the Caribbean, sorrel means the dried red calyx of a hibiscus, which is related to none of these and tastes tart for a different reason. A label reading only sorrel therefore does not identify what is in the container.
How do the plants differ?
| Name | Botanical identity | Usual use |
|---|---|---|
| Garden sorrel | Rumex acetosa | Leaves cooked in soups and sauces |
| Sheep sorrel | Rumex acetosella | Dried leaf in herbal blends |
| Dock | Other Rumex species | Roots in traditional herbal use |
| Caribbean sorrel | Hibiscus sabdariffa | Dried calyx steeped as a drink |
Where does the tart taste come from?
Oxalic acid, the same compound that sharpens rhubarb and spinach. It binds calcium in the gut, and in quantity it forms crystals that irritate the mouth and burden the kidneys. Cooking does not remove it. Ordinary culinary portions pass without trouble for most people, but the plant makes a poor bulk food, and a concentrated extract carries far more of the acid than a plate of leaves does.
Is there evidence behind the health claims?
Sheep sorrel appears in herbal tea mixtures sold with cancer claims, which is how the plant reached medical dictionaries at all. Laboratory work on plant extracts is cheap and plentiful; showing that an extract slows cells in a dish is a long way from showing that a tea changes the course of a disease in a person. No controlled trial has established an anticancer effect for sorrel in any of its forms, and sources that state one are repeating a marketing claim rather than a finding.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
The patient reported drinking an herbal tea containing sheep sorrel alongside prescribed treatment.
Good to know
Herbal products labeled sorrel usually contain sheep sorrel, a different species from the garden sorrel used in cooking, and no controlled trial has shown an anticancer effect for either.