foodie too. I like to prepare fresh food, and I want to be able to grab a seasoning mix out of my cabinet and sprinkle, drizzle, infuse – whatever it takes to add the flavor. So, blending and preserving mixes from my own garden makes sense to me. The recipes you find here are mixes in a ready-to-use form. Many can be stored in the spice cabinet, the refrigerator, or frozen.
This book is all about taste and how flavor – the flavor of herbs – can be used to enrich your experience of eating. It’s about creating the tingle on your taste buds. It’s about the ancient and beautiful art of seasoning.
But it’s about more, especially for anyone who, like me, has experienced health issues and then discovered the “something extra” that herbs can contribute to our wellbeing.
A WELLNESS JOURNEY NOTE
As this book began its early transformation into pages and photos, I collected recipes I have used over the years and even pulled a few of my own herbal concoctions out of my spice cabinet. It was time to write them down and put them into recipe form. At the same time I was also in the midst of medical issues. A battle with fibromyalgia and pain and fatigue in recent years was becoming worse – and I was losing. It had always been just annoyance enough that I didn’t do much about it…just lived with it and didn’t take care of myself. But the symptoms were starting to affect my everyday life. (No need to go into all those medical details, and I do hate to talk much about it. You know – that personal stuff!)
So I took steps to find a doctor with a different approach than just take higher doses of ibuprofen. After a blood test that showed how haywire I had gotten, we started an elimination diet. (Elimination really shouldn’t be paired with the word diet; I prefer to call it my wellness journey.) The wellness part focused on healing and identifying foods that were anti-inflammatory. And a dishearteningly short list it was. At first, I wondered what the heck I could eat, but the reality was, yes, my palette was limited but the flavor part was not!
The grocery store shelves became a lesson in limitations: finding mixes, dressings, etc., without sugar, high fructose corn syrup or some derivative of gluten, soy, and all those binders, fillers and just plain hard to say ingredients. I needed to find organic, and free from possible irritant chemical ingredients that are used in processing and in non-organic food-producing growing practices: all inflammatory ingredients I was trying to avoid.
But back in my kitchen cabinet were mixes I had made from herbs in my garden. Aha, so what I was already doing (making herbal vinegars, oils, seasoning salts) suddenly widened into something really important: bringing healthy, natural flavors to the forefront of my everyday food enjoyment. I focused like a laser on finding and developing herbal recipes that are high in flavor but not in unnecessary, possibly inflammatory ingredients.
Where does all this feed into what you are reading? On the list of good things that I could have as much of as I wanted was – yes – herbs! Fresh, unprocessed, organic ingredients and flavor enhancers that were without things that triggered my multiple sensitivities. It was a real revelation – to not give up on flavor, just give up foods and additives that were making me unhealthy. Here is a journey for you, too. Whatever your sensitivities are, you can tailor flavor to make your own food better.
WHAT’S INSIDE:
In these pages you’ll find all you need to know about 20 of the most commonly used and flavor-rich herbs: how to grow them (easy!), the best varieties to choose, what parts to use – plus essential information and tips throughout. I’ll take you step-by-simple-step through harvesting and preserving the herbs and capturing all those precious flavors.
And, as promised, there are the recipes! Over 100, showing you how to flavor, mix, mingle and blend herb flavors into almost any meal, from finger foods, main dishes and desserts to infused teas, wines and botanical cocktails.
The big takeaway: You become a creator of flavors. A master of blends. An infusion maven. You deepen your relationship with the plants you bring to your table and the garden that produces them (even if it’s only a sunny windowsill or a balcony). You enrich your appreciation of the way Mother Nature gives us not only food to sustain us and keep us healthy, but flavors that give us pleasure and joy. It’s a win-win partnership.
I wish you a wonderful adventure into the rich, exciting world of herbs.
https://herbloversgarden.com/
TASTE
the Mixology of Flavor and Food
Is food love or is it necessity? Food is simple. It’s fuel for your body, of course. But because of the twists and turns in the personality of taste it becomes a higher subject matter. It’s personal, it’s emotional – even controversial. Just search the internet for diets…no sugar, no carbs, paleo, you know all the names of eating plans. It’s a firestorm of information. It could leave anyone at a loss about what to eat. Is it bad or good? Why do I sometimes crave bad things, but wait – which diet says which food, fat, sugar, etc., is bad or good? No wonder eating plans and diets are such a huge billion dollar industry.
Now, stop for a minute, eat a fresh apple from the garden or a sun-ripened cucumber. It’s pure and fresh and based solely on nature’s own flavorings. We like to eat food when it tastes good – bottom line. It’s satisfying and fills some inner need, whether it’s emotional or to regulate our blood sugar. But it tastes good and that’s the point.
MYSTERIOUS MIXOLOGY
Why do some foods taste better after we season them? It comes down to the natural mixology of combining scent and taste. Take any recipe for a main dish and note the ingredients. It typically begins with a main ingredient like a meat or a vegetable. The next things listed in the recipe are about adding flavor: the salt, the pepper, the spices. The flavor mix becomes important to that main ingredient, turning something ordinary into a culinary delight. Otherwise it is just a simple cut of meat or a plain vegetable. When fragrant, flavorful ingredients are added they begin to meld and mingle and create aroma. It gets your taste buds watering for a bite.
THE SCIENCE OF TASTE
Oh, those crazy taste buds. This reminds me of biology class in grade school. There was a big drawing of a tongue divided into sections, showing bitter taste bud receptors in the back, sour and salt receptors on the sides and sweet in the front. I remember thinking about it when I tried to swallow a nasty-flavored medicine: Just get it past the taste buds in the back (or sides), then I don’t have to taste it. It didn’t always work. Since then, that old theory of the taste map has been debunked by studies showing that the quality of taste is not restricted to any single area of the tongue, but that all areas of the mouth contain sensors for all kinds of taste. With that understanding, it’s even more important to know how we mix flavors together so they are desirable – so when food hits those different receptors it’s pure mixology.
The taste of food is about the blending of sweet, sour, salty and bitter in ways that stimulate our taste buds. So how do we approach seasoning food? Interesting question with no right or wrong answer. It is more about an individual taste on the tongue. People perceive flavor differently. My taste is different from yours. I don’t like spicy
