When anyone mentions herbs, what is the first thing you think of? I would guess many of you would say, “French cooking!” No child ever enjoys eating or drinking anything that tastes unpleasant, and as adults we naturally continue to prefer appetizing, flavourful food (sometimes at the expense of what is good for us). So the herbs most generally used were those which added some special taste or flavour to food. Medicinal herbs and many of those which were undeniably “good for us” were often bitter or very strong, and gradually they became less frequently grown and used. One of the most valuable of these, the common dandelion, is dug up and thrown out of our gardens, because, although it contains in large quantities so many of the vitamins and minerals essential for good health, it has a slightly bitter taste, and has now become only a weed .
After the excesses of the French Court and the nobility, and the literal starvation of the ordinary people, the French Revolution brought a great change in the eating habits of all the Continental countries. Food gradually became more plentiful; but, m revulsion against the luxury or ostentation that recalled the hated aristocrats, food was simply cooked, fresh fruits and salads were picked from the fields and put straight on the table, and simple croissants replaced the cakes and elaborate confections of the Bourbon Court. But you can’t keep a good French cook a conformist for very long, and soon fresh herbs were being picked from the fields and gardens to give that individual touch to many a simple dish.
The Napoleonic age produced perhaps the greatest number of skilled cooks, amongst whom was Grimod de la Reyniere, who in 1803 formed a society of gourmets, the Jury Degusta-teur, and the proceedings of this group were published in a journal, the Almanack des gourmands. Later, Reyniere published his own cookbooks, amongst the first ever written containing recipes as such. Careme, cook to Talleyrand, started writing cookbooks in 1815, as distinct from the “household hint” type of book written previously. Women of some position (not necessarily cooks) began to write recipe books, evolving their own individual recipes (presumably with the help of a large kitchen staff).
French food today still has the character formed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—simple ingredients simply cooked, with the addition of those magic touches that make French cooking the best in the world. Many of these individual additions are herbs, added to a dish at just the right moment to release the full flavour and aroma.
*7\181\8*
