Herbs: to crush, smell and cook

The introduction to Sauce Chivry begins

I like herb sauces. They mean summer, when so many fish are at their best — and look their best, served with a pale green sauce. I like walking down the garden — the genius of man having placed the herb patch as far away from the kitchen as possible, on the principle, I suppose, that exercise is good for cooks — past catalpa and hibiscus, to find chives, tarragon, and parsley which flourish at the foot of a most entangling rose.

The arch tone belongs to Jane Grigson (Fish Cookery) but what I particular like about this passage is the finesse with which it deploys the present and the infinitive. It lends a liveliness that propels the reader on to trust the directives that follow about judging an appropriate amount of herb to add. After a little tour of English, French and Italian geography we are urged: "So be guided by the season, and by your own taste and climate. Be prepared to use far more than I — or anyone else — suggest." By this stage we are already complicit in the imperative.

And so for day 1908
04.03.2012