Herbs and Foods

Without plants man could not survive. Cereals “Sophisticated grasses” fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts are essential constituents of human diet some may say the only suitable ones and even the meat we eat comes from animals which themselves fed on vegetation in the shape of grasses and herbaceous plants. The plant lumped together under the umbrella name of herbs do not appear at first glance to be essential to maintain life, but it is now becoming apparent that this concept could be wrong, and that herbs are as essential as oxygen, although the ingredients they contribute, such as minerals and vitamins, amy only be found in small quantities. 

The so-called culinary herbs, parsley, mint, and basil and so on, all have characteristic flavors which enable them to be used in recipes of their own, or added to dishes to give a tantalizing piquancy. It is not always realized that often an herb will help with digestion generally, or with the digestion of the particular food with which it is associated. Peppermint is a classic aid to food absorption basil contains a substance which helps with stomach cramps and parsley is a diuretic. 

The strong flavors of culinary herbs ensure that they should be used in little quantities, but other is no need to go to the other extreme and be timed with them. The Greeks strew their common thyme liberally all over roasted or kebabed lamb, to its great enhancement, and it is worth applying this principle to all the cooking herbs. The leaves are closely always the part of the plant used, newly picked and freshly chopped at once, or used dried, provided they’re no older than 6 months.

Aromatic herbs are the ones most used in cooking no two are alike and some are so difficult to explain that even to say they’re clove like gives the wrong idea. The fact is that several have an aroma and flavor which is rare and unique for instance, basil can only be explain as tasting i.e. basil. Some are so strongly aromatic as to be spicy, and tarragon in particular is one of the few that has such a strong taste it does need adding in minuscule amounts to meat or fish dishes. Bay is another; one leaf is quite potent enough for the average family casserole. 

Quite why food and diet have become of such interest in recent years in for the social historian to discuss but there’s no doubt about the present popularity of culinary herbs. The history of the use of herbs in food is naturally bound up with the history of food itself. It is commonly thought that herbs were used mainly to disguise the flavor of bad meat during the winter when there was no recently slaughtered beef or lamb to be had, or when food in general had started to go off. But there were precisely good ways of preserving food without refrigeration, which were followed even more diligently than we do these days in the time of the deep freeze. 

Although, herbs have always been used to pep up the more blandly flavored foods i.e. fish, vegetables and cereals. Interestingly, religion had a considerable influence on herbal use in cookery, since the decreed times when meat should be eaten, when fish only was the rule, and when there were fast days or fasting weeks. Lenten food was particularly plain, and herbs and spices as well, were used a great deal in such food. 

Looked at from the other side, it should be realized that blandly flavored foods decrease the strong and exotic taste cooking lies to use herbs in such quantities that the strength of their flavors balances the strength and flavor of the food to which they’re added. They use to blend as well; it is no good using a herb whose taste contradicts that of the dish to which it is being added.