Some Herbs We Plant Just for Fun By Lindsay Bond Totten
Scripps Howard News Service
Some herbs we grow because we must--everyday herbs like parsley and dill, basil and thyme.
Others we plant just for fun. How else to explain grape-scented sage or banana mint? Not even a gourmet cook is likely to need those for a recipe!
Can you even imagine a use for grape-scented sage? A fruit smoothie, perhaps.
The world of herbs beyond basil and thyme is deep and mysterious. Or just plain whimsical, if you wish. Exotic flavors of international cuisines are captured in the herbs of their cooks.
Gardeners are in the catbird's seat when it comes to cooking with fresh herbs and out-of-the-ordinary spices. A few seeds, a rooted cutting, a pot of soil, a little time. Simmer gently in full sun, and before long out come elegant herbs like lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexvosus), a popular flavoring essential to Thai cuisine. Like most of the unusual herbs mentioned here, lemongrass is easier to grow than it is to buy fresh.
Starting with a small division in spring, a gardener can begin to snip the foliage of lemongrass soon after the plant has rooted. The herb's tangy lemon flavor is concentrated in the swollen bases of the leaf blades, however, so go easy at first until the clump is well established.
Lemongrass is a tender perennial, grown as an annual everywhere except in frost-free zones. Overwinter a piece of the root on a sunny windowsill indoors and start it up again in spring by repotting in fresh well-drained soilless mix. Outdoors, give lemongrass lots of sun and an occasional dose of diluted soluble fertilizer.
In the same container, or in a separate pot, sow seeds of another Asian favorite, Thai basil. Its mild anise flavor is a good companion to lemongrass in traditional Thai noodle dishes and soups.
Thai basil is just one of many "flavored" sweet basil varieties, including lemon, lime, cinnamon, licorice and camphor. Grow all of these just like the common sweet basil used for making pesto, in a sunny well-drained bed planted after threat of frost has passed.
Sweet bay is a well-known flavoring for stews and stocks. Its delicate clover scent is most celebrated, perhaps, in bouquet garni, a mixture of herbs in which sweet bay is the one constant.
Cooks will enjoy the subtle differences in dishes prepared with fresh bay leaves instead of dried. From a small bay tree in the backyard--practically the only way to insure freshness--a cook can harvest a steady supply of the aromatic green leaves all summer.
Bay trees grow slowly from seed, so it's quicker to start with rooted cuttings. Be sure to buy only plants marked Laurus nobilis. California bay (Umbellularia californica) is sometimes sold as a substitute, but its leaves can be toxic. Overwinter your bay tree as a houseplant indoors.
Whether you call it "cilantro" or "coriander", get fussy about the variety you snip when you grow it yourself. Chinese coriander's (Coriandrum sativum) pungent flavor comes from its seeds; the variety known as "Santo," popular in Mexican dishes, is grown for its leaves and stems.
Because cilantro foliage turns bitter very quickly as it matures, quality is unpredictable when this herb is purchased at the supermarket. In the herb garden, however, a cook can always capture cilantro at its peak by sowing a short row of seeds every couple of weeks. Watch for yellowing foliage, a sign that it's time to pull out old plants.
A pot of windowsill chives (Allium schoenoprasum "Grolau") in a south-facing window means never having to throw out a practically full package of "fresh" grocery store chives again because you couldn't use them fast enough. Snip just what you need for the evening's meal and savor the rest for later by sowing this special greenhouse variety of chives outdoors, then potting some up for the winter. Credit the plucky Swiss for this clever selection. Chives are perennial.
Hearty dishes like crock-pot stews benefit from the bold taste of lovage. You won't need much, just a stalk or two for the entire pot; lovage's intense celery flavor is memorable. Lovage plants are attractive, but one will probably be enough, for, at three to four feet tall, its size is as potent as its flavor! Lovage is one of the first herbs to emerge in the spring and is reliably hard to USDA Zone 5.
And for dessert there's hardly a cake or pudding that couldn't be kissed with flavor by one of the mints: apple, chocolate, banana, ginger, sweet pear, lime, orange or grapefruit.
Plant sage if your taste runs to tangerine, pineapple, grape or honey melon. Can't decide? Hedge your bets with "fruit"-flavored sage. Velvety leaves and neon-pink flowers describe its essence to a "tea."
Find these exotic culinary herbs and many more between the covers of Richters Herbs catalog. The Gourmet Gardener carries seeds for many of them as well. (See below for contact information.)
(Lindsay Bond Totten, a horticulturist, writes about gardening for Scripps Howard News Service.)
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