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.
