Diacono Mark - Herb

For Candida, who loves herbs beyond whats normal.

Publishing Director Sarah Lavelle

Junior Commissioning Editor Harriet Webster

Head of Design Claire Rochford

Design Matt Cox at Newman+Eastwood Ltd.

Cover Design Composition by Matt Cox from original illustrations by Tatiana Boyko

Photographer Mark Diacono

Food Stylists Matt Williamson and Mark Diacono

Head of Production Stephen Lang

Production Controller Sinead Hering

Published in 2021 by Quadrille, an imprint of Hardie Grant Publishing

Quadrille

5254 Southwark Street

London SE1 1UN

quadrille.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

text Mark Diacono 2021

photography Mark Diacono 2021

design Quadrille 2021

eISBN 978 1 78713 642 7

CONTENTS

Im sitting within an incomplete ring of pots, each full of herbs, their flowers alive with pollinators, the sun flashing bright as I scribble. Its the middle of summer and most are plump and at their oily peak; some letting the sun draw flowers skyward, others pregnant with buds. A few like the lemongrass that has scented my fingers are invisibly becoming more themselves in the heat, intensifying in flavour and scent as if knowing thats exactly what we want of them. On days like this, their beauty and scent are enough to make this nonbeliever ponder the presence of an all-guiding hand.

If you were sitting here, youd recognize many. A few are variations on a familiar theme: theres orange thyme, ginger rosemary, and Thai basil, its leaves bright with spicy nutmeg scent. I can brush three lemon verbenas without moving. To my left, a pair of lavenders: one thats best for the kitchen, another thats bordering on the fabric softener but beautiful to me and the bees. Just behind, summer savory, resinous as a creosoted fence and an ever-closer friend these last few years; Ive come to love its slightly bitter tones, especially when end-of-season tomatoes need bringing into line in the hottest of ovens or over an outdoor fire. Next to it, the Vietnamese coriander I feel Ive got to know since I stopped being too influenced by its name: yes, it is a bright, lemony version of corianders familiar scent and flavour, but it is so much more too.

There are a few that bergamot by my foot, for one that I know I havent got the best from yet, but thats half the fun. After decades of this designing kitchen gardens, growing and using an almost impossible variety of herbs at Otter Farm, at River Cottage and in this small garden Im still scratching the surface. I like that. As much as I love a brilliant book reaching a satisfying conclusion, I want parts of my life to stay open-ended, to be an inexhaustible pleasure, and herbs are just that.

Whether in the garden or kitchen, herbs are elevators; transporters engaging us in a way that a potato or a cauliflower, however glorious, cannot hope to. Using them is a sensory experience often indivisible into its constituents. So very often, their flavour and scent are interwoven; you can intuit how they might inform your cooking by rubbing their leaves and paying attention to what the smell tells you. It goes further: the dark leaves of Chocolate mint smell cold; my daughter swears lavender tastes purple. I know what she means.

This characteristic also allows herbs to carry other ingredients more deeply into the senses. Take the mojito, that holy alliance of rum, lime, sugar, soda and mint, so right that it makes this unconvinced man think of the occasional brilliance of our flawed species. And it is the mint that laces the shoe for the lime and rum to kick you so very perfectly in the consciousness.

Herbs elevating quality is really just awaiting your exploration. Mint with lemon verbena, dill and salmon, sorrel and new potatoes, lovage and Lancashire cheese; these mark the merest tip of the herbal iceberg. You dont even have to try to be clever with herbs: they offer a wealth of clothes for even the simplest ingredients to dress up in. A panful of just-cooked new potatoes are wildly, deliciously different depending on whether you cast in a handful of sorrel or mint or a sliver of lovage.

Understanding a little about herbs goes a long way towards making the best of them. Herbs fall into two camps: perennials that endure for years, and annuals that are sown, grown and eaten within a year. Many perennials sage, rosemary, thyme are woody plants with glossy leaves that are resistant to tooth and knife; annuals parsley, coriander and basil are usually softer, easily torn, chewed and chopped. A few, such as mint and chives, are perennials with soft leaves.

The woodier perennial herbs should be high on any cooks list of favourites to grow; aside from their flavour, they are easy and pickable every day of the year. Many are not eaten, as such, but rather lend their flavour to whatever they are with. Bay and scented geraniums are among those that give up so much to alcohol, sugar syrup, water, milk or cream, but eating the leaves is to eat the wrapper rather than the sweet. There are exceptions: counter-intuitively, the cats tongue of a sage leaf becomes glorious fried to a crackle, and rosemary chopped to a pile of full stops brings flavour without the usual barbs.

For most of the soft herbs, the Hippocratic oath applies: first, do no harm. In general, the less you have to do with their soft, thin leaves from the moment they leave the plant until you taste them, the better. While heat can be your friend with woody herbs, it can completely destroy soft herbs precious scent and flavour, hence reaching for them almost always indicates that I am about to walk from oven to table.

Of course, this is a spectrum rather than a sharp distinction. Warmth can unlock so much in soft herbs that heat kills: fridge-cold pesto may as well be chain oil, yet under only the warmth that pasta is willing to let go, it sings. A few of the more robust soft herbs such as lovage can take some cooking. Those often-discarded, untasted stems of coriander are full of extraordinary flavour and can stand up to oily heat, their flavour enriching the base of a soup that a last-minute scattering of the leaves talks to. Complexity, interest and flavour results.

This sea of pleasure is ours to dive into. Even in the supermarket the range of herbs is ever-increasing: this morning I found lemon thyme, lovage and Thai basil in my nearest, each absent only a few years ago. Those supplying direct through box schemes, farmers markets and farm shops offer an even greater range. Online suppliers invite us to use herbs fresh and dried from other cultures and cuisines. Plant nurseries push open the doors of flavour possibility even further. I join their chorus.

So much of what follows is about getting herbs flavour pleasingly across your taste buds. A lot of it is to do with timing; how you use your knife is crucial. Some of it is about using fats, salt, sugar and liquids to draw out and carry the flavour of herbs that are best infused, about appreciating their varying affinities with citrus, chilli, garlic, oil and other harmonious partners. I will tell you what I know and encourage you to explore further.