A HARTE APPETITE: HERB BASIL HAS FLAVORABLE HISTORY

Had television been around then, both Jerry Springer and Martha Stewart might have fought to have as guests on their show Lorenzo and Isabella, the hero and heroine of a Keats' poem based on a story by Boccaccio.

Isabella lived with her two brothers following the death of their father. Despite the insistence of the brothers that she marry well and collect a sizable dowry, she fell madly in love with Lorenzo, a carpenter who worked on the family estate. To keep their plans from being foiled, the brothers lured Lorenzo into the woods and killed and buried him there. Subsequently, his ghost appeared to the distraught Isabella, told her what happened and gave her a map to his shallow grave in the woods.

Isabella dug up Lorenzo's body, cut off its head, and took it home with her where she promptly planted it in a large basil pot along with some basil seeds. She watered the seeds with her tears and in time the plant grew so lavishly that it rivaled the finest specimens in Florence. Isabella's brothers became concerned about her attachment to the plant and stole it away. Cracking the pot open they saw the head of Lorenzo and, realizing what had happened, left town. Meanwhile, Isabella, unable to find her precious pot of basil, died of misery.

Fortunately for us, it is not necessary to go to such lengths to grow basil, an herb with a fragrance and flavor far more delightful than this macabre tale might suggest.

Basil has always been an herb with symbolic significance. In Crete it represented "love washed with tears" as in the story of Isabella and Lorenzo. In ancient Rome it was thought to provide protection against the fire-breathing dragon or Basilisk. In ancient Persia and Malaysia it was scattered on graves. In Rumania a man is considered officially engaged when he accepts a sprig of it from his girlfriend. In India, where the plant actually originated, one variety (appropriately named Holy Basil) is considered sacred. Likewise, the ancient Greeks thought that only the king himself, using a golden sickle, should harvest basil (the name comes from the Greek word for king, "basileus.") As Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat points out in the History of Food, the harvesting process was steeped in ritual. Women were not allowed to pick the herb, and the priest who officiated at the harvesting ceremony had to purify his right hand with water from three different springs.

The 3,000-year-old plant also has therapeutic value. It is an antidote to venom, is reputed to contain anti-viral compounds and has been used as an insect repellent. A recent article in Mother Earth News reports that a world renowned French herbal folk healer named Maurice Messegue prescribes a basil tea for migraines. He also claims it is good for the eyes and suggests that if merely drinking the hot tea doesn't do the trick, it should be cooled to lukewarm and used as an eyewash.

But, of course, basil's greatest role is in food. There are more than a dozen varieties of the herb, ranging from sweet to spicy, that can be used in cooking. Sweet basil, with its broad, green leaves is probably the most familiar, but there are also opal basil that is deep purple in color as well as cinnamon basil, lemon basil, licorice basil, Thai basil, and lettuce leaf basil, so called because of its large leaves.

We love them all at our house, for, with the possible exception of cilantro, basil is our favorite herb. And luckily for us, it is a lot easier to grow than cilantro. In fact, basil is one of the easiest herbs to grow. The Romans even believed that the more the plant was abused the more it would thrive. It grows well in full sun, prefers dry soil, as it is sensitive to excess moisture, and tends to be prolific. (Even now, scientists in Italy, where basil is a multimillion-dollar industry, are hard at work developing a frost-resistant strain that would allow for an even longer growing season.)

You can begin harvesting basil when the plants are as small as 6 inches tall and have only six or so pairs of leaves. As Thomas DeBaggio and Susan Belsinger point out in their book on the subject, this early pruning will actually trick the plants into being more productive. That's because basil plants are programmed to produce only a certain number of leaves before they start flowering and quit growing leaves altogether. If you harvest early enough to keep each stem from developing its target number of leaves, you can delay the flowering process and get more leaves per plant. And you can grow basil year-round. All you need is a warm, sunny window. (Fresh basil is now routinely available, even in winter, at the supermarket as well.)

Growing the herb year-round is a good idea because, frankly, no method of storage can keep its just-picked essence from fading. Dried basil is almost totally devoid of the true character of the fresh herb. A traditional way of preserving basil is to layer the leaves in an airtight jar, salt them, cover with olive oil and keep in a cool place or refrigerate. A more modern method involves pureeing the leaves with water or oil and freezing the mixture in ice cube trays for later addition to soups and sauces.

Probably the best thing to do with excess basil is to infuse its flavor into vinegar or oil or, better yet, turn it into the classic Italian basil sauce, pesto, and freeze it. Invented in Genoa where there's plenty of basil and olive oil to go around, pesto consists of basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, and oil ground together in a food processor or by hand in a mortar. (The name comes from the Italian word "pestare," which means to pound.)

But at our house, the problem of what to do with leftover basil is not really an acute one. Our appetites usually tend to outstrip the production of the two pots we have growing out on the patio. That's because during the summer months we eat lots of the classic insalata caprese (literally, the salad from Capri), which is simply a layering of fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella dressed with olive oil. And also because we put basil in everything, including risotto, pasta, pasta dough, soup, salad, potatoes, salmon, chicken, iced tea, melon, and even sorbet (we fell in love with the stuff after sampling it at a booth at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City a few years ago). We've yet to run across a dish that in our judgment isn't improved by the addition of fresh basil. Try the following recipes and see if you don't agree.

Pesto

These days pesto can be made from almost any herb, including thyme, parsley, cilantro, and mint and a wide variety of other ingredients, including sun-dried tomatoes, sunflower seeds, green olives, red peppers, raisins, almonds, hazelnuts and even avocados. But this is the classic recipe from the Joy of Cooking as used by Elizabeth Seesing of Cape Girardeau to make use of the abundance of basil that grows in her herb garden. Lizz also gets rid of the surplus by willingly sharing it with friends, a fact for which we and other recipients who love the herb are most grateful. Pesto is traditionally served with trenette, a flat ribbon pasta, but it can also be used with other pasta shapes and in lots of other dishes as well. Try it, for example, slathered on a French baguette as a change of pace from garlic bread.

Ingredients:

2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves

1/3 cup pine nuts

2 medium cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

Place all ingredients except olive oil in food processor and process to a rough paste. With machine running, slowly pour olive oil through feed tube until incorporated. If sauce seems dry (it should be a thick paste), add a little more olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. May be kept in covered glass jar in refrigerator for one week or frozen. If freezing, add nuts and cheese after thawing.

Pasta Caprese

Insalata Caprese, the classic tomato and mozzarella salad from Capri is, I have happily discovered, found everywhere in Italy, sort of the equivalent (in ubiquity only) of our chef salad. Invented in the 1950s at the Trattoria da Vincenzo, it consists simply of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella drizzled with olive oil. This summer we have been enjoying the following recipe from Bon Appetit magazine for a "pastafied" version of the salad.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, seeded, coarsely chopped

8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into 1-x-1/2-inch strips

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

12 ounces penne pasta

Directions:

Mix tomatoes, mozzarella, oil and vinegar in medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper and let stand one hour at room temperature. Mix in basil. Cook pasta, drain, add tomato mixture and toss gently to blend. Serves 4.

Basil Grilled Chicken

This recipe from a recent issue of McCall's magazine calls for basil oil that you can buy at gourmet stores such as Williams-Sonoma, but it's easy to make yourself. Simply put a half cup of packed basil leaves into a half cup olive oil and cook in the lower third of a 300-degree oven for an hour. Strain the oil into a glass jar and keep covered loosely and refrigerated at all times for up to one month. This chicken would go well sliced and served over salad greens.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon basil oil

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper

Directions:

Combine 1 tablespoon oil, garlic and pepper flakes in glass pie plate. Add chicken and turn to coat evenly. Let stand 15 minutes. Sprinkle both sides of chicken with salt and pepper and grill over medium heat 3 to 4 minutes until cooked through. Drizzle with remaining teaspoon basil oil.

Got a recipe you'd like to share with our readers? Are you looking for a recipe for something in particular? Send your recipes and requests to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.

~Tom Harte is a professor at Southeast Missouri State University and writes a food column every other week for the Southeast Missourian.