In Gaza under the Israeli blockade, there are echoes of an ancient medieval trade: the smuggling of rare, precious commodities. Just as prized as cement (banned by the Israelis for fear it might be used to make bombs), and just as contraband, Gaza has a thriving black market in herbs — coriander, aniseed, chamomile. And this week, as Israel allowed the entry of coriander seed, the much-tried inhabitants of Gaza celebrated this small victory.
Equally ancient is a tradition still observed in midsummer: the practice of harvesting herbs just after the summer solstice, in the belief that the oils and healing properties of herbs are strongest at this time. There’s an intensity to midsummer herbs that nothing else can match.
The rising Indian interest in herbs is almost entirely restaurant-driven, and owes a great deal to chefs who brought in Vietnamese, Thai, Italian and Asian cuisine at a time when we were still suspicious of anything ‘foreign’. Most traditional Indian cuisines are spice-focused, not herb-oriented. There are exceptions — coriander/cilantro is ubiquitous to the point of abuse in North Indian cooking, distressing the small but vocal minority of cilantrophobes. (Coriander is a deeply divisive herb: those who can’t stand it are genuinely, almost chemically, allergic to it.) But the herbs we use most often in cooking are not the aromatics (basil, lemongrass, mint) but the bitters: fenugreek (dried methi), kadhipatta (curry leaves), even, in Bengal, the tender and stunningly bitter young leaves of the neem tree.
This makes no sense to me, except perhaps as a corollary of the fact that we didn’t grow our own aromatics until recently — but even that fact is dubious, given the prevalence of the tulsi grown in balcony flowerpots and added generously to chai in most Hindu homes. Perhaps it had to do with the economies of trade, and the spices and recipes that crossed over — but how we embraced Malaysian cooking styles and curries while continuing to eschew lemongrass, or why we never experimented more with, say, a household herb like mint, is beyond me.
Sometimes you just have to give thanks for the tradition of the hotel buffet. Endless riffs on Thai-style curries have led to a greater demand for basil — try a traditional meen moily with fish, coconut milk and basil leaves instead of curry leaves some time, to take it in the Thai direction — even if we don’t always get good quality sweet basil here. Local organic farms in the Kumaon and Himachal hills have begun to fuel the demand for more ‘Western’ herbs like tarragon and rosemary, though I often prefer buying these fresh and then using them to infuse vinegar or in herb butters that can be frozen and stored for a while. Some of India’s more iconic restaurants have taken classics to an entirely new level — Bomra’s famous tomato-mint salad is basically a riff on a humble, everyday Burmese dish, but in the hands of that Goan restaurant’s skilled chef, the balance of flavours is just right, just intense enough.
Unsurprisingly, you’ll get a great sense of how to use herbs from the classic Thai restaurants — and it doesn’t get better than Blue Ginger, the Vietnamese restaurant at the Taj in Delhi. The delicacy of Vietnamese cuisine is often overlooked — it suffers in comparison to the complexity of Thai food — but one of the things I love about it is the generous use of unusual herbs, called rau thom (fragrant leaves). In addition to the familiar flavours of basil, mint and lemongrass, Blue Ginger sources some fascinating local Vietnamese varieties: kinh goi, or a kind of lemon balm with lemon adding to the sharpness of mint, and red perilla, which is a perfect contrast to great beef.
Back at home, I’m seduced by an unexpected gift of Provencal herbs, the dried ones from Provence that don’t taste like the sawdust we get here. I can’t help myself. Knowing that this is crack addict behaviour, I stick my head in the bag and breathe in. And I can tell that my cooking for this week will shift from Vietnam to Europe, just for a while. n
(Nilanjana S Roy is a Delhi-based editor and writer)