Herbs – From gathering to taste

By Sofia Triantou

From wild gathering to the modern kitchen, herbs trace a cultural journey through trade, science, and memory reminding us that taste is always part of history

Before humans began systematically cultivating the land, they lived by gathering wild fruits. And when agriculture became organized, cereals and vegetables formed the basis of their diet, yet the plants that gave food its character-aroma, bitterness, intensity-continued to grow wild, in rocky soils and along the margins of cultivated fields. These plants we came to call “herbs.”

The word, however, is not merely botanical. It is deeply cultural. It describes a long relationship between humans, taste, knowledge, and landscape. In the earliest agrarian societies, knowledge of wild plants was not lost. It remained alive through daily practice. In ancient Near Eastern traditions, the fallow year observed every seventh year temporarily returned people to a way of life closer to gathering wild plants. The distinction between “wild” and “domesticated” was, from early on, a cultural choice.

Over time, many of these plants were brought into domestic gardens. Small kitchen plots were created beside the home, where knowledge, care, and flavor coexisted. Herbs were not cultivated for large-scale production, but to remain close to the person who cooked. It is no coincidence that even when houses disappeared, the plants often survived like the rosemary found centuries later growing over the ruins of a Roman dwelling.

In Europe, whatever could be cultivated locally was called an “herb.” What came from afar-cinnamon, clove, pepper-was called a “spice.” Spices, expensive and rare, became associated with luxury and courtly cuisine. Herbs remained linked to everyday life. This distinction was not botanical; it was the result of geography, trade, and social difference.

Already in antiquity, the use of plants was systematically recorded. Mesopotamian tablets and evidence from Mycenaean Greece show that herbs such as fennel, mint, and coriander were integrated into daily life, without a clear distinction between nourishment, healing, and fragrance.

Common plant names often proved ambiguous. The same plant could bear different names from place to place, while different species shared the same name. Scientific classification, with Carl Linnaeus, attempted to bring order, without abolishing the fluidity of knowledge. Names change, categories are revised, and ancient texts often remain open to interpretation.

In Roman cuisine, as recorded in the work attributed to Apicius, we encounter herbs we still use today, as well as others that have vanished. The most striking example is silphium, a plant so highly sought after that it disappeared through overexploitation. With it, a fragment of knowledge and cultural memory was lost.

For centuries, people believed that a plant’s form revealed its properties. Today we know that taste and aroma derive from complex chemical compounds. Drying, for example, does not always diminish an herb’s intensity; it often transforms it. Fresh and dried material are, in essence, different ingredients.

Thus, herbs are not merely culinary materials. They are traces of trade routes, carriers of local memory, objects of scientific inquiry, and elements of cultural identity. The distinction between “herbs” and “spices” ultimately proves arbitrary. What matters is our relationship with plants: whether we treat them as products or as interlocutors in our shared history.

And this long journey-from gathering and cultivation to trade and science-ultimately returns to taste. To the plate. To the everyday act.

A simple dessert can serve as a living example of this continuity.

Strawberries with Basil Syrup

Ingredients:
225 ml water
200 g sugar
20 g fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
500 g fresh strawberries, cleaned and sliced
4 fresh basil leaves for serving

Method:
Heat the water with the sugar until dissolved. Remove from the heat, add the basil, and let cool. Strain and pour over the strawberries. Refrigerate for about one hour, allowing the aromas to meld.

In this way, the story of herbs returns to where it began: in taste.