Parsley. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko Pexels.com

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Herbs as care, spellwork, scandal and the people’s green masala

by Arun Kapil

The first herb that properly got me was not basil, not rosemary, not some noble Mediterranean shrub clinging to a hot stone wall. It was cress. Tiny brown specks on damp tissue. Nothing much to look at. Schoolroom magic. Kitchen witchcraft. Then, a few days later, green life. Shoots you could cut with scissors and eat.

Mum would scatter those stringy little greens into egg sandwiches for long car journeys, or garden picnics on the travel rug and I thought they were there for the nutty, tart little nip. Later I understood they were there for love. That extra pinch. That unnecessary necessary thing. The hand saying: this could have been plain, but I made it yours.

That is still the best definition of a herb I know. Not garnish. Not lifestyle. Not some exhausted supermarket sleeve collapsing in the salad drawer beside three guilty carrots. A herb is attention made edible. A little green proof that somebody bothered.

The West likes to pretend its seasoning is sober. Black pepper. White salt. Two table shakers standing guard over the plate with all the joy of a wet Monday. Proper. Restrained. Respectable. But just off to the side, usually in a mug of water, a cracked pot, a hedgerow, a plastic tray, or a bunch from the Asian shop so generous it looks faintly illegal, is the real mischief: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, dill, mint, basil, tarragon, sorrel, wild garlic. The green spice rack. The old plant intelligence. The stuff we kept calling garnish because we had forgotten how much work it was doing.

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In our northern steel-town, UP-influenced home, herbs never turned up announcing themselves as herbs; flavour spoke in other names. They came as dhania, pudina, methi, curry patta, tej patta. Part of my early masala life. Chopped, sliced, torn, dried, fried, bruised, scattered, steeped. Mint cooled and lifted. Methi gave a sauce that dry, bitter, grown-up hum. Indian bay sat in the jar like a quiet elder. Curry leaves hit hot oil and the kitchen stood to attention. Nobody made a sermon out of coriander. It simply knew what to do.

So, I get twitchy when people talk as if the West has herbs and the rest of us have spices. Leaves are leaves, seeds are seeds, bark is bark, yes, fine. But the reality is more nuanced. Every culture found its green things, bitter things, aromatic things, healing things and then made dinner from them. The West had spice culture all along. It just called much of it herbs, then demoted them to the side of the plate. Before garnish, there was spellwork.

“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” sits in the ear like a charm because it is one. Not in the neat, internet-symbolism way, where every leaf is given a tidy little meaning and is sent out in polished shoes, and not just as that sleek, slick Sixties refrain either but in the older, muddier sense. Scarborough Fair is a song of longing and impossible tasks. Those herbs move through it like a green refrain from a world where plants still knew things people had forgotten how to say. Love. Bitterness. Fidelity. Cure. Curse. Come back to me. Leave me alone. Make the impossible possible.

Long before a chef with long tweezers got involved, herbs had proper work. Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, that great old first-century storehouse of plant medicine, travelled through Greek, Arabic and Latin worlds because leaves, roots, seeds and flowers were not decorative trivia. They were pharmacy, poison, balm, ritual, fieldcraft, kitchen craft. Body knowledge. Survival knowledge. A way of reading the earth before anyone thought to laminate the menu.

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The seasons still teach this if we let them. Wild garlic and sorrel do not whisper Spring; they kick the door open with muddy boots. Damp earth, cold light, that sudden arrogance of green after winter. Basil belongs to heat, tomatoes, oil, the soft thud of summer abundance. Tarragon brings its twisted aniseed elegance to chicken, eggs, vinegar and cream, a little too pleased with itself but forgiven because it tastes so bloody good. Rosemary, thyme and bay are hardier souls: lamb fat, roast potatoes, beans, stock, smoke, patience. Sage straddles the year beautifully. Mediterranean by birth, roast-dinner Irish and British by adoption, sun-baked in its oils yet solemn enough for autumn and winter.

That is why herbs are the perfect route back into understanding spice. Nobody sensible thinks basil in February is the same creature as basil in August. So why do we pretend turmeric, cumin, pepper, clove or cardamom have no season, no harvest, no weather, no farmer, no drying yard, no risk? Spices are not born in jars. They are plants with pasts. Seeds, bark, roots, fruits, pods, flowers. Monsoon, sun, soil, hand, trade, theft, patience, skill. A jar is not an origin story. It is the last chapter.

The science matters, but only if it returns us to the pot. Herbs usually give us the leaf: green, volatile, immediate. Spices often come from seed, bark, root, pod or flower, and many need drying, grinding, roasting or blooming in fat before they properly speak in all their vibrant colours. That is why fresh basil sulks if you bully it, why rosemary can take the heat, why dried oregano wakes when rubbed between fingers, and why kasuri methi – dried fenugreek leaf – can make a curry taste as if it has remembered something important.

Fresh herbs shout in green. Dried herbs speak in bass notes

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This is where the fresh-versus-dried argument gets lazy. It is not simply that dried herbs are stronger, though often you use less because water has gone and flavour has tightened. Drying can also knock out the high notes, the quick perfume wins, the fragile green lift. Oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage and bay dry well because they are built for endurance. Basil, parsley, coriander and dill are more delicate; dry them badly and they become hay with a forged passport. Methi, related to the pea family, is its own little miracle. Fresh fenugreek leaf has one mood; dried kasuri methi, crushed between the palms, has another entirely: bitter, nutty, haunting, almost smoky, like the memory of a field caught in a sauce.

And, whilst I’m here in pea world, can we talk about pea shoots? Those stringy, tricky-to-fork little green notions, flung across plates as if their very presence might cover-up for a lack of seasoning, confidence or a decent sauce. Every time I see them, I approach the dish with suspicion. Now, I am well versed in the phrase judging a book, its cover and the like, but rarely does this curious mouthfeel of edible green dental floss improve the experience. I have seen them scattered over scallops on social channels, and that genuinely confuses me. Something from the sea: crisp-soft, sweet, delicate, beautiful suddenly tangled up with green nylon from the land. Anyway. I digress. Mostly.

Our cupboards are more alive than we admit. Those lined-up jars are not dead dust. They are plant matter paused and waiting. Rub dried oregano and it should wake. Crumble methi and it should rise. Throw old rosemary in too late and it will sit there like pine needles in a bad mood. Cook it with lamb, fat and time, and suddenly it belongs to the animal. A herb has timing. Temperament. Pride. It can be insulted.

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Follow the leaf and it takes you everywhere. Dill with fish across the north of Europe. Tarragon with chicken in France. Coriander thrown over curry like a final blessing. Lemongrass cutting through Thai broth. Epazote settling a pot of Mexican beans. Bay haunting bread sauce. Rose petals drifting through garam masala and Persianate cooking with perfume and suggestion. Za’atar carrying thyme, sumac, sesame, breakfast, land and longing in one dusty, magnificent pinch.

That is the thing about herbs. They look light. They are not light. Palestinian za’atar is not just a pleasant thing to sprinkle on flatbread. It carries place, memory, restriction, continuity, appetite, argument. A leaf can become a border. A blend can become a homeland. A breakfast can become a refusal to disappear.

And then, just as everything gets fragrant and romantic, the cupboard turns into a crime scene.

Oregano fraud sounds almost comic until you remember that dried herbs should carry a clean memory of the place they grew. Professor Chris Elliott’s work at Queen’s University helped show how oregano had been adulterated with cheaper leaves; one study found around 24% of oregano samples tested in the UK and Ireland contained adulterants. Olive leaves. Myrtle. Cistus. Hazel. The kind of botanical hustle that sounds harmless only if you think flavour is decorative. It is not. It is trust. It is provenance. It is the difference between a hillside and a side-hustle.

Food is how people recognise home. That is why beloved, sincere eateries matter – places like San Pietro, part of the landscape of my own growing up. Piero comes from Villalba, up in the Sicilian interior; Michelle from North Lincolnshire. Together they have built a restaurant that refuses to flatten Sicily into branding, or turn Italian food into beige comfort theatre. A little bougie, yes, but all heart, welcome, family and flavour. It keeps faith with sugo, pasta, pizza, grilled meat, village slopes, immigrant kitchens, farmers and memory: all the things that get watered down first when food is treated as a commodity rather than a culture.

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They source wild oregano and sumac berries from home not because it makes a pretty menu sentence, but because some flavours are not interchangeable. They arrive with weather attached. With hillside. With family. With the old instinct of someone who knows when something smells right because it smells like where they are from. That is the opposite of fraud. Not “authenticity”, that over-policed little word with a clipboard and a bad attitude. Accountability. To flavour. To origin. To the hands before yours.

Herbs are democratic, but they are never innocent. They can be grown on damp tissue, in a school tray, on a kitchen shelf, in an allotment, down a lane, in a hedgerow, under industrial hydroponic lights, or in the sort of restaurant kitchen where micro-amaranth is placed with surgical seriousness by someone holding tweezers like they are defusing a bomb. A child snips cress. A grandmother chops coriander. An uncle tears basil. A chef places one heroic leaf on a scallop and charges accordingly. Mint grows like gossip. Parsley survives neglect. Coriander arrives from the Asian shop in bunches so abundant they make supermarket packets look ashamed of themselves.

And some herbs refuse to behave altogether. Spearmint, once invited into a garden, does not so much grow as organise a takeover. It marches. It annexes. It behaves like it has minutes from a previous meeting and a five-year plan. Nasturtium leaves bring that peppery, tangy little slap that makes a salad sit up straighter. Hawthorn leaves, young and tender, have that green appley brightness, hedgerow sharp and quietly thrilling. Lavender is beautiful when used delicately, a whisp of perfume in cream or sugar; heavy-handed, it becomes the edible equivalent of licking your auntie’s soap dish. Herbs have manners, but only if you do.

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One late afternoon, I walked through Castlemartyr Wood, round the corner from me here in Cork, gathering wild garlic leaves with the ridiculous confidence of a man already imagining jars and jars of twisted pesto. Back home, two hours into washing, sorting, chopping, stirring and muttering darkly at the sink, the pastoral fantasy began to curdle. Television foraging has editing. I, tragically, did not. Still, the smell was magnificent: damp woodland, garlic breath, Spring with mud on its boots.

Even when romance gives way to labour, perhaps especially then, herbs tell the truth. Flavour is work. Care takes work. The little green thing at the end is rarely just the little green thing at the end.

That is why I cannot dismiss herbs as pretty. Pretty is the least of them. They carry bitterness, freshness, medicine, perfume, geography, fraud, memory and love. They are the people’s pharmacy, the cook’s first rebellion and the last affordable luxury. A herb is what happens when flavour refuses to be expensive.

So next time you see a bunch of parsley, a pot of mint, a jar of methi leaves, a sleeve of basil, a tired bay leaf sulking at the back of the cupboard, do not think garnish. Think weather. Think medicine. Think fraud and hillside, mother love, old songs and hot oil. Think of something alive travelling through someone’s hands towards your plate. I think of my mum with the scissors, cutting cress over egg sandwiches for the road.

Nothing grand. Just green life, snipped small. Just flavour saying: someone thought of you.

Masale bolte hain!

Spring Lamb with Rosemary, Bay & Garam Masala

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And, for my May recipe – a spring roast classic, sweet meat, green herby glory and just enough masaalchi madness to make the table lean forward.

This is a Sunday roast with one foot in Ireland, the other in masala life. Rosemary and lamb already know each other well; bay sits quietly in the background like it has seen everything before; garam masala brings warmth, shadow and a wide-eyed mischievous innocence without turning the whole dish into fancy dress.

Take a spring leg of lamb and score the fat lightly. Pound or finely chop garlic with rosemary, crushed bay, generous garam masala, salt, lemon zest, a spoon of mustard and enough oil or ghee to make a rough paste. Rub it all over the lamb, pushing it into the cuts, then leave it for at least an hour, or overnight if you are feeling organised and smug. Roast on medium gas 4, 180°C over scorched onions, carrots and a splash of stock until the lamb is blushing or cooked through, depending on your household politics. 52 to 55°C is where I take it, 15 mins for every 500g, then check its core temp for a pink heart. Rest it properly. Finish the pan juices with lemon, stock and a knob of butter or ghee. Serve with roast potatoes, greens, yoghurt, chutney, gravy, or whatever your table demands. It should taste familiar first, then quietly dangerous.

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Arun Kapil, Food Editor of Ars Notoria, and punk food poet, founded and owns a spice company, Green Saffron Spices. He works sustainably direct with partner farms mainly to the west and north of India and some in the south. He works directly from source. He owns total chain of custody, depleting links in the chain, bringing direct line of sight to fields of cultivation. Arun and his partner Olive began by selling one or two sachets a week of bespoke blends with accompanying recipes at a farmers market stall in Mahon Point, Cork. They now sell spices and seasonings to globally based blue chips, onward food processors and are just in the throes of re-launching their brand, based on Modern India meal solutions, sauces, spice blends, naan, condiments and basmati. They started the business boot-strapping from the bottom up, managed with a good deal of jugaard. He considers himself to be a masaalchi and at best a khansama supported by a strong network of Irish, Indian and British agri-experts and businessmen.