Fresh Herbs

Fresh Herbs
The desire for healthier, better tasting food, culinary sophistication and globalization have all conspired to bless us with a burgeoning selection of herbs in the supermarket — a cause for celebration. Happily, a similarly large selection of seeds and seedlings are also available at nurseries and garden centers for those who want the utmost in flavor and nutrition.
Fresh is always better than the alternative, and this is especially true when it comes to culinary herbs. Herbs growing in a windowsill pot or back-door garden provide you with much more flavor and healthful nutrients than dried or pre-packaged herbs.

Growing Your Own
In an age when convenience in the kitchen is so highly valued, why should anyone take the time and trouble to grow their own herbs? Because growing your own is actually the ultimate in convenience — not to mention flavor — when it comes to cooking.

The perception that growing your own culinary herbs requires excessive amounts of time, energy and arcane knowledge is simply not true. Starting a small windowsill herb garden, for example, is as easy as buying seedlings at a garden center, putting them in a flower pot or planter and watering occasionally. Buying seeds and starting them yourself is only slightly more taxing and, of course, you'll have to wait longer to see results. And don't forget that buying seeds or seedlings is much cheaper and less wasteful than buying a bundle of cut herbs when all you need is a sprig or two.

A larger herb garden outside your kitchen door will obviously require a greater commitment of time, labor and attention but regardless of how simple or elaborate your planting, the true reward is the convenience of always having fresh herbs available to enhance your cooking. And freshly cut home-grown herbs add vigorous aroma and zesty flavor to dishes that dried or store-bought herbs cannot match. How much better does a sprig of fresh basil taste compared to dried? A lot. So much so that you may never buy dried basil again.

In addition to flavor, fresh herbs pack much more nutritional power. Drying herbs not only reduces the volatile oils responsible for flavor and aroma, but also diminishes the antioxidants and other nutrients that many herbs have a reputation for. Freeze-drying, a fairly recent innovation, retains slightly more nutrients and flavor than traditional methods but still cannot compete with fresh.

Finally, there is much to be said for the pleasure and pride of cooking with ingredients that you have grown yourself. You know exactly where it comes from and it satisfies the ancient urges for self-sufficiency and contact with the earth that, though mostly dormant in this age of convenience, still stirs.