[Joanna Savage]

Tournefort, 17th century botanist. Theoldfoodie.com blog refers to Tournefort's decscription of a preserve made from the galls of a grey leaved scented plant growing in the eastern  mediterranean area. The galls may be caused by insect bites. It sounds as though the plant might have been larger than the usual Salvia, although I see that that there is a Salvia pomifera which could be so called because of apple galls.
Have any forum members ever heard of, or made such a preserve? It sounds as though it would need a lot of galls to make a spoonful.

[JTh]

The galls are actually not that small, Salvia fruticosa produces quite large galls. According to Wikipedia: 'In its native habitat, it frequently develops woolly galls about 1 inch in diameter which are called 'apples'. These 'apples' are peeled and eaten when they are soft, and are described as being fragrant, juicy, and tasty.The formation of galls was originally thought to be limited to Salvia pomifera,[13] which led to the misidentification of many gall-bearing Salvia fruticosa plants. In 2001 it was discovered that the galls on Salvia fruticosa were caused by a previously undiscovered genus of Cynipid gall wasp.'

I haven't tasted them myself, but I have a photo from Crete taken two years ago.

P4100638 Salvia fruticosa gall.jpg by Jorun Tharaldsen, on Flickr

[Joanna Savage]

Thank you for the photo Jorun. Last week I had tried to open an oak apple gall from a tree here. It needed an axe to cut it, so the idea of an edible gall on Salvia seemed bizzarre.

[Alisdair]

Our Greek mason Ilias (who says they are delicious raw) says it's important to snap them off in spring while they're still plump and soft and the tiny larvae inside are still active; he couldn't persuade me to try them, though.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

What did he do with the larvae?

[JTh]

Eating the larva in this 'apple' can't be worse than eating dried figs or figs from wild fig trees, which are pollinated by the fig wasp. There is a nice article about 'Humans as fig eaters' here: http://www.figweb.org/Frugivores/humans.htm

[Charithea]

Jorun thank you for the article. Just read it. Very informative for someone like me that eats fresh and dried figs. Up to now no signs of ill health! Also many thanks for all the other 'sites' you have being putting on the forum.