Sept 18, 2025
I can’t for the life of me recall exactly how this recipe came to be. What I do know is that it evolved over the years. It may have originated in an old cookbook with an image (I vaguely remember) showing pork tenderloin threaded onto very fancy skewers with fleur-de-lis handles.
When or where fresh bay leaves entered the picture is another mystery, but I have an equally hazy memory of pruning my bay tree one afternoon and tossing a few of the cuttings onto the barbecue to see what would happen. When they smoked, they perfumed the air, and the flavor they lent to the meat was unforgettable.
I’ve always loved the taste of fresh bay laurel leaves, Laurus nobilis, whose sweet, mildly pungent aroma bridges the chasm between savory and sweet. These are the leaves used for laurel wreaths given to ancient Greek athletes and worn by the god, Apollo. They have been used in Mediterranean cooking and folk medicine since the 7th century BCE.
Most often I use them in soups, stews and court bouillon, but I also learned to use them in desserts after watching Norwegian chef Andreas Viestad make a custard scented with bay on his show New Scandinavian Cooking. It was one of those revelations that makes you look at an ingredient you thought you knew and realize how much more it can do.
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