Herbs in the kitchen, a balsamic touch for your home.

They are called plants or aromatic herbs because the small cells in their leaves produce characteristic volatile aromas of varying intensity. They represent the ideal garnish for our dishes in the kitchen and, in some cases, are also essential ingredients for giving character to specific recipes.

Some aromatic plants are the fundamental base of historical culinary preparations in Italian cuisine, such as basil for making pesto, parsley for green sauces, and rosemary for anything that involves roasting white or red meat. What would lardo and the history of lardo di Colonnata be without rosemary? What would an exotic drink like Mojito be without a sprig of mint? What would a parcel of fish be without parsley? We could go on and on with these magnificent aromatic herbs.

At this point, the main questions become: how can these aromatic plants be used in the kitchen? Fresh or dried? Whole or in fragments? Can we create a corner of aromatic herbs at home? Do they survive winters? Is there enough light in our homes to keep these plants alive? Do they require a lot of care?

First of all, if we are food enthusiasts and passionate about good cooking and we enjoy the pleasure of a tied apron transforming us into little chefs, it is essential to have a small collection of fresh aromatic herbs at home always ready. They survive better than flowers; they need light, but the light from a window is sufficient. They require water, especially in the summer during the hottest periods, otherwise, in winter they are even more manageable. They reproduce and continue to thrive with their leaves. If you take care of them, they can even last several months. If you want to rejuvenate them in spring, feel free to change the soil where you planted them. If you still have the original pot, change it!

They are very easy to care for and keep alive. They brighten up the house like all living beings. They naturally scent your spaces and sometimes eliminate unpleasant kitchen odors. Make beautiful arrangements of aromatic plants and leave them in the kitchen, on your window sill, on a veranda if you have one.

Using fresh aromatic herbs in the kitchen even in winter means enhancing the enjoyment of dishes, the freshness of preparations, and savoring the recipes you have made more fully. Using dehydrated leaves of herbs means losing a lot in character, expressiveness, and freshness. The aroma is suffocated, and the intracellular essential oil is often crystallized, making it useless for cooking. Indeed, the risk is to carry along the degradation of essential oils and have negative, bitter, unpleasant sensations that alter the enjoyment of the dish.

Spaghetti & Mandolino offers you a wide range of aromatic herbs, some of which are rare, others typical of traditional Italian cuisine. We offer them to you in their pre-packaged pots. We recommend, if you can, to transplant them into larger pots together with others in arrangements of at least three or five. The odd number, even for their arrangement, can positively affect slow but gradual growth. Let’s add fragrance to the home, to the kitchen, and to your dishes. It’s also fun to grow these little plants and nourish the miracle of creation.

Bernardo Pasquali

S&M