A Native American friend tells me that the Hopi and Zuni use it as a flavouring for corn and beans, as well as planting it near both as a pest-repelling companion plant. Much as the related herb mugwort is used in Europe, or its nicer-tasting cousin tarragon.
I have it in the garden (I know it as Boreal Wormwood or Prairie Mugwort, it isn’t really a sage at all, but as you can probably tell from the tiny flowers it is part of the daisy family). Beautiful plant. If I were using it in food, I would use tiny amounts, because I have tasted it when used as a medicine, and the flavour is strong. Not bad, but strong. And as always, check for allergy. Someone who is allergic to mugwort or wormwood might well be allergic to A. frigida.
I grow it for the poultry (let them eat it against lice, worms, stickfast fleas and suchlike, and put sprigs in their bedding as an insect repellent), for its beauty, and because it has uses in herbal medicine and magic. It was used internally as part of treatment for several respiratory and digestive complaints, as an antiparasitic, and was burned to disinfect a sickroom or clear a space, and used in incense and perfume.
If you have ever seen a smoking ceremony, which in Native American tradition was used to purify a space or a person, Artemisia frigida is one of the herbs used in the smoking bundle, (also called a smudge stick) which is burned like a stick of incense and the smoke wafted around the area or person being worked on. The smoking bundles I have seen are made from dried leaves of Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata), leafy stems of Artemisia Frigida and of Salvia apiana, White Sage or Bee Sage, which actually is a sage, tied together with more sweetgrass.
