To say that herbs are the soul of cookery is to affirm, metaphorically, a culinary truth: their judicious and imaginative use in the kitchen results in a distinguished, sophisticated cuisine. Don’t be discouraged by the words “distinguished” and “sophisticated”; such a cuisine is easily within your competence. Submit yourself to a very simple test: roast half a chicken with herbs—I shall show you in the Epilogue how this is done—and roast the other half without them. Now smell and taste the two parts. You smile with approval! You glow with culinary confidence! The seasoned part smells and tastes better than the other! Your cuisine is now distinguished and sophisticated. And wasn’t it all very simple? The judicious and imaginative use of herbs did the trick. Voilà!
Is it any wonder, then, that in Europe and the Orient, where the use of herbs in cooking is as common as the use of salt and pepper, there should be a mythology of herbs, a veritable herb lore, just as there is a mythology, a lore of wine? It is, indeed, so extensive and so diverse, ranging from the romantic to the pathological, that it would require volumes to anthologize the best of it. Much of the lore, particularly the anecdotal material accepted as knowledge, has its genesis more in desire than in experience: rosemary leaves strewn under the bed will prevent bad dreams; munching caraway seeds will bring a bloom to the cheeks of pale-faced maidens; garlic juice in the nostrils is a safeguard against the plague; a sprig of anise tied to the bedpost will make one look young in the morning; an indifferent face may be made fair by washing it with an infusion of white wine and rosemary leaves. There is, of course, no proof for these quaint and interesting claims. Wine is a good and pleasant thing, and sweet basil will do wonders to fettuccine. From these facts it is an easy leap to the wish-conclusion that herbs and wine are rich in miraculous virtues. Nor is such wishful thinking regrettable. There is, in fact, much good in it, for it affirms in many delightful ways that wine and herbs relate very closely to the aesthetic in man’s nature, his desire for that which is pleasant.
And that which is pleasant, all that contributes to purely sensuous pleasures, all that urges one to abandon Calvin and follow Epicurus and seek a measure of redemption in joyous living has been for too long suspect in an America that was forged in the Puritan ethic. The Anglo-Saxons owe their culinary heritage of mashed potatoes and somber gravy to the teachers and preachers, statesmen and philosophers whose busyness and austerity fashioned that essentially gloomy and stern view of life. A dish that smelled good and tasted even better than it smelled, and so was eaten with fresh appetite and heightened pleasure, would certainly stimulate appetites of another sort and urge one on to pleasures more visceral, especially if the savory food were accompanied by a glass of wine. And that would spell damnation. So boil the potatoes and water the roast, and fill the dinner goblets with water, and let each one rejoice in the austere pursuit of business.
It was a cruel philosophy rooted in the Middle Ages and supported by a misreading of the Sacred Book. It attempted to legislate out of existence certain wholesome appetites of the flesh, man’s instinctive search for those experiences that yield immediate pleasure, and, in the long pull, it failed. Prohibition is out; gourmet cooking and wine are in. In the America of today the view of life fostered by the Puritan ethic has been purged of much of its sobriety. Many, many Americans have made the happy discovery that there is neither sin nor wickedness in a sprig of rosemary and a glass of wine; that, other things being equal, a sophisticated cuisine, by increasing total contentment, is more likely to promote the good than the bad life. And this sane trend in America’s coming of age is attested by the growing interest in a sophisticated cuisine, in wine as the indispensable dinner beverage, and in herbs as “the very soul of good cookery.” I owe the phrase to Marcellina, about whom I shall have something to say later.
Culinary herbs! the lovely aromatics! The secret of good cookery is in the use of these. And since they are not generally available at the supermarket, you must grow them yourself. For the dry herbs, in the very process of drying, lose their spicy essence; at best, they are only an inadequate substitute for the fresh. I shall tell you more about them, how the best of them may be grown and used, but first, a word about my own interest in herbs. The intent here is to dramatize as vividly as I can the statement that fresh herbs, the lovely aromatics, are indeed the soul of cookery.
It is my good fortune that I was born in Italy, of peasant parents who were both good cooks, and in a culture where the pleasures of the table were applauded even by the clergy. How well I remember the corpulent, rosy-cheeked parish priest sitting at our table and drinking a toast to Mother’s savory broth! A dish of good food, whether it was a soup, a stew, a vegetable, a fish, was the preoccupation of everyone. They openly exulted in it, talked about it, named the flavoring agent that gave it character, or suggested how it might have been improved with a little less x and a bit more y. When they sat together in the evening knitting or mending, housewives talked frequently about cookery, wondering with what herbs and condiment they might contrive a good dish out of the lowly raw materials they had to work with. They sometimes disagreed on what herbs and spices should be used to flavor a dish of frogs, for example, and then there would be a spirited discussion in which even the men and older children participated. Everyone was interested in eating well, and no one even faintly suspected that delicious food would nudge one toward damnation.
In such an environment I passed my early childhood. Then we emigrated to America, where, with an abundance of good raw materials at their disposal, my parents—Father usually cooked on Sundays—achieved a very fine cuisine. Every dinner was in some way distinguished, and its “secret,” known to every French and Italian housewife, was the use of fresh herbs.
Since I was very young and very busy with the myriad interests of the young, I took my culinary good fortune pretty much for granted. Until I went away to college. Then I realized that when I had moved from our home in the country and gone to Seattle I had left behind a very fine cuisine the like of which I could not find in the university community. And no wonder! The entire state, the whole Northwest, had not yet discovered garlic! But I must find it, I told myself. I must have an occasional dinner such as I had enjoyed at home.
And find it I did in the homes of Italian immigrants in Seattle’s “Little Italy.” Even before I had finished with registration, I began my exploration of the Italian community, intent on cultivating the friendship of some of the then youngish housewives who were reputed to be good cooks. Within a year I was on “family” terms with more than a dozen good cooks. Some were from the north of Italy; some from the central provinces; two were from the south. They all had large kitchen gardens in which they grew their herbs and vegetables. Excited by the abundance they had found in America, they were all intent on perfecting their cuisine. They consulted with one another, exchanged ideas, and sometimes resolutely disagreed on whether a certain herb was essential in preparing a dish.
Since I was frequently in the home of one or the other of them when they visited in the evening after dinner, I learned a great deal from them about cookery and the use of herbs. Occasionally I was on hand while one of them was preparing dinner; then I would observe and ask questions. And when I went home I would tell Mother about some of the dishes I had eaten and liked; she, delighted with my interest in cookery, would tell me how she prepared the same dish. In this way I learned that the secret of a fine cuisine was the use of fresh herbs and that without them, food could be made good enough to eat, but never good enough to inspire praise.
The two best cooks I met in Seattle’s “Little Italy” happened to be neighbors. Let me simply call them Angelina and Marcellina. They were also good gardeners. I was fascinated by these two women because in addition to being good cooks, they were strikingly different in character and bound to each other by a subtle, silent culinary competition. Each was certain that she was the better of the two, and when they talked about cookery, the intent was somehow to get this point across without seeming to do anything of the sort. Of that good-humored competition I was the happy beneficiary, for when one learned that the other had made fettuccine for me, she promptly invited me to dinner and gave me fettuccine made her way. “Are they good?” she would ask as she watched me eat them with my customary groaning sort of relish. And without waiting for a reply she would add, with the subtlest touch of irony, “Of course, Marcellina [Angelina] makes them better.” With a wink, a gesture, an ambiguous raising of the brows, but without speaking a word, I had to praise the one without seeming to betray the other.
Angelina was from Tuscany, the land of Italy’s finest olive oil; Marcellina was from Parma, the land of butter and cheese. The one used olive oil exclusively in her cookery; the other used much butter. And they often argued about which was the better fat for cooking. Marcellina dressed her fettuccine with butter, cheese, and fresh basil, an herb for which she had a special affection. When it was in season she often carried a sprig of it with her for sniffing when she went visiting. Angelina insisted that the best dressing for fettuccine was the classic meat sauce used for spaghetti. In preparing a roasting chicken for the oven, Marcellina insisted that Angelina was wrong in adding celery leaves to certain other herbs. And so they argued, and each looked to me for support of her views. I ate heartily the proof of their theories and somehow managed to keep them both happy and cooking for me.
It was in listening to their talk about cookery that I became aware, for the first time, that in speaking of herbs the Italian housewives generally used the word odorini. It is the endearing plural diminutive of the Italian word odore, “odor.” Thus, odorini may be literally translated as the “dear little odors or fragrances.” Angelina and Marcellina, chatting about culinary herbs, revealed their affectionate regard for them by using the term. “Lovely aromatics” is a fairly good translation, and there is no doubt that they are the soul of cookery. On this point, Angelina and Marcellina were in complete agreement.