![]() Recently, for instance, she heard of a plant that is said to turn rice purple if a few leaves are added to the cooking water she’s yet to try it. Saville says she has been “reading, studying and cooking with herbs for more than 25 years” but always finds new territory to explore. Still, she’s looking forward to sowing new terrain. The book’s cover photo was taken by Saville’s frequent collaborator in what Saville calls “the back 40” of her 1/3-acre property, as were many of the other photos in the book. And the garden has played a large role in her work. Many of the herbs were planted from seed or ordered from specialty nurseries in 3-inch pots. It won’t be easy for her to leave her garden behind. Many cuttings and potted plants will go with her, but the bulk of the garden will remain for the next occupant. She is moving to Albany, in the Bay Area. With the book done and the garden just about the way she wants it, Saville is about to start all over in a new climate and new terrain. Admiring the orange-burgundy flower on a tall galangal plant, Saville says, “Is that beautiful, or what?” It gets a mention in the book, but not a chapter.įragrance and flavor aren’t the only attributes of herbal ingredients. Aussie Sweetie basil, on the other hand, is tangy and clove-like, a delight to sniff. It has been included in the book, but without a recipe. Houttuynia, an herb popular in Southeast Asia, “smells almost like meat, it’s so strong,” she says. “It’s one of the herbs that does, indeed, change character.” “If you try the rau ram salad, it’s just lovely, “ she says. Then their character changes in cooking.” Rau ram, common in Vietnamese markets, is one of these. Some of Saville’s plants, as she says matter-of-factly, “just smell rank. (The process, however, is laborious, Saville warns, probably best left to the dedicated.) It’s even possible to grow the saffron crocus and harvest enough of the precious stigmas to flavor a dish or two. Samphire joins African valerian, silene and other herbs, greens and flowers in a summer salad, and anise hyssop contributes subtle flavor to a rich ice cream. So she puts African blue basil into vinegar, uses East Indian basil to pep up baked apples, combines Golden Rain rosemary with true French sorrel in vichyssoise, flavors honey with Vietnamese balm and adds papaloquelite to duck tacos. “I wanted to incorporate them into my repertoire of recipes.” “I didn’t want to put in my garden just so I could cook a particular ethnic cuisine,” she says. It was important to Saville that the recipes have broad appeal. Exotic, then, to Saville is not only the nonindigenous, but the herbs that are currently considered unfamiliar or unusual or having special culinary assets not widely known. Today, these herbs are so commonplace that they don’t rate an entry in Saville’s book. What is exotic? It wasn’t too long ago that cilantro was almost unknown to the average American cook, that Italian parsley had to be grown from seeds (if you could find them) and that only avid gardeners knew about cucumber-flavored burnet. And from this garden has come a new reference and cookbook, “Exotic Herbs” (Henry Holt, $35), full of herbal lore and history, botanical information, gardening instructions, culinary advice and recipes. Here in the hills off Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Saville has cultivated a gardening cook’s paradise. ![]() ![]() An allspice plant yields spicy leaves that Saville uses with roast pork or applesauce. True French sorrel has amazing acidic bite. Walking through the Los Angeles garden grown by gardening writer and cookbook author Carol Saville is an adventure in taste and smell.
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