Why Herbs?

Why write about herbs? Herbs are a uniquely fascinating and generous group of plants to grow, use and learn about. Most of us who cook at home are familiar with using herbs in various forms and several commonly used fresh herbs are now standard supermarket fare; stocked alongside vegetables and salads they are bundled into plastic bags or potted to grow and cut when we need them. We use them for flavour and aroma, to lift an otherwise mundane dish beyond its basic ingredients, or to add authenticity to world cuisine - think of sage and onion stuffing or lemongrass and thai basil in a curry.

Herbs are also well-known for their medicinal properties; from headache relief to providing modern medicine with some of the tools to help fight cancer, many pharmaceutical drugs are based on or derived from chemical compounds identified in plants which can help to heal us. Whole areas of alternative medicine have grown out of the various ways that herbs can be used, including aromatherapy, homeopathy and herbalism. Around the world many communities rely on herbal remedies for health.

Herbs also link us to our social and scientific history. Medical herbalism forms a major (and often political and controversial part) of the history of modern medicine. Botany arose from the attempts of plant hunters, herbalists, doctors and scientists to identify and classify the plants they were using and discovering, many of them medicinal herbs, from all around the world. A wealth of folklore surrounds the traditional uses and customs associated with herbs and native plants in almost every culture on earth, much of which is being lost as we move further away from traditional ways of living.

Herbs are beautiful enough to be grown as ornamental plants in their own right. Fennel and Goat's rue are perfectly at home in garden borders bursting with herbaceous perennials at the height of their summer bloom. Creeping Thymes tumble over rockeries, fragrant favourites of bumble bees and gardeners. Height and structure come from shrub Myrtles and Rosemary, or even trees like Elder and Bay.

Herbs are also recreational in more prohibited ways. The capacity of plants to produce substances which affect our bodies even extends to the alteration of our state of consciousness and our experience of reality. Mind-altering herbs are still used in traditional cultures to commune with ancestors and spirits as a very real part of daily life, whereas modern attitudes towards medicinal herbs have come to include an element of fear - herbs can have powerful effects on the body and if used incorrectly can cause harm and even fatality.

Herbs delight us, heal us, intoxicate and feed us. They link us to our history and folk traditions and provide us with ways to rediscover our cultural roots. They blur the boundaries between food and medicine and continue growing as weeds even if we disregard them.