Savora
For a current trip I’m taking, to avoid airport food, I made a sandwich. Since I was en-route to Israel, I though it best to avoid my usual jambon fromage and make a turkey sandwich with cornichons, cheese, egg, and mustard.
I’m not a condiment guy; I much prefer regular mustard than something jazzed up with a lot of flavorings. And I’m not big on mayonnaise either. Sure, it’s a great moistener. But is it really better than an immodest swipe of butter? (Or some mashed up fresh goat cheese?) I always hear about all these new sandwich spreads and so forth, and I guess I’m kind of boring because none of those things with honey or sun-dried tomatoes or anything “Ranch”-style sound all that interesting to me.
I’ll stick with keeping my sweets for dessert, thanks. Sun-dried tomatoes should probably stay back in 1986, and although I haven’t lived in a ranch, if I ever did, because of all the exercise I was getting working the fields and herding cattle, I would not be eating sandwiches or salads with bottled dressing. I’d be chowing down on bbq ribs and fried chicken, for sure.
So I’m not quite sure why I had a jar of Savora in my refrigerator. Perhaps it was because a while back, someone told me about its vaguely cult status in France as a condiment, and I grabbed one off the shelf at the supermarket. According to the jar, it’s been around since 1899 and contains exactly eleven spices and aromatics, including a “suspicion” of cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg, cloves, cumin, celery, garlic, tarragon, malt vinegar and, yes, a cuillière (spoonful) of multi-flower honey.
For some reason, this seemed like the day to break open the jar. Bright yellow in color, reminding me of something American that’s got a French’s moniker, I smeared it on my baguette au sésame and piled everything else in there that I could – smoked turkey, sliced gherkins, aged Gouda, and a hard-cooked egg – and packed it all up.
When I got to the airport, looking at the options around me, I was – as usual – more than happy that I had not only remembered to bring my passport and e-ticket print out, but that I had a freshly made sandwich with easily discernible ingredients to snack on, rather than the shrink-wrapped sandwichs (sic) that everyone else waiting in the terminal were grimly stuck with.
So, how was the Savora? Well, let’s just say that I’m not ready to toss my jars of zippy Dijon mustard out with the mayo: it had a slightly gelatinous texture and the taste didn’t knock my chausettes off. However here on the sunny sidewalks of Israel, I don’t think I’m going to need them.
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