‘It is rocket science,’ said my husband waving a pinnately lobed leaf snatched from his restaurant salad. He doesn’t much like rocket salad and wishes all supplies had perished along with the lettuces of Spain. So as a distraction I tried telling him that rocket leaves were connected with street urchins, caterpillars, caprices and hedgehogs.
The herb rocket is older in English than the sky-rocket, which appeared no earlier than 1566. The firework rocket took its name from rocchetta in Italian, meaning ‘little bobbin’, from the similarity in shape. There is a related old word in English, rock, which once meant ‘distaff’ and is used by historians now to mean ‘spindle’. But that is nothing to do with the greenery. Salad rocket is related in origin to the Italian rucola, by which we have also learnt to call it.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in