This is a tale of two parsleys.
Parsley No. 1 was the prettier of the pair — bright green, with curly, crinkly leaves. However, as any teenage girl knows, looking too cute can get you dismissed as a lightweight. That was, alas, the fate of parsley No 1. She got relegated to a supporting role in the kitchen, fit only for garnishing plates.
And parsley No. 2? People took her far more seriously, because of her plain, flat, businesslike leaves. She also possessed one huge trump card: the magic word “Italian” attached to her name. So parsley No. 2 earned the accolades of gourmets everywhere as “the best kind of parsley to cook with.”
Poor parsley No. 1. She could whimper all she liked that she tasted just as good as her Plain Jane cousin. No one took any notice.
At least that’s my take on this much-used herb, folks. Everywhere I go, people keep trotting out the myth that Italian parsley tastes better than the curly kind. But it’s bollocks. And — hallelujah — the tide does seem to be turning. Canadian House & Home recently identified curly parsley as the new “star of high-end cuisine,” with chefs suddenly favouring “its intense flavour over flat-leaf.”
Be that as it may, all parsley tastes better when you grow it yourself. And it’s pretty easy. Just give the plant nutrient-rich soil and lots of water. If it dries out (the bottom leaves will start turning yellow) whack the whole thing back, water and it’ll soon bush out again. Too-dry parsley tastes bitter and has a tough texture. I find the curly kind harder to clean than Italian, because gritty bits of soil tend to get splashed up and trapped between the “crinkles” during rain. (Perhaps that’s where the belief that Italian parsley is better to cook with comes from.)
And don’t bother to grow any kind of parsley — pretty or plain — from seed. Germination takes longer than the streetcar out to the Beach. Just pick up pots of both types in spring from the garden centre. Then, do a taste test yourself. Chew on a raw sprig of each. See what I mean?
Grow your own
Mesclun mix
Unlike parsley, supermarket salad greens lose their flavour fast. So grow your own. Mesclun mix is hip, incredibly easy and fun. (And by the way, it’s MEZ-clun, not mescaline, which delivers an altogether different high.) Just sprinkle seeds on top of a shallow container of damp growing mix. Keep in a spot which gets sun part of the day, but doesn’t fry the leaves. Start snipping within three weeks. The freshness is delish. Three Canadian sources: Stokes Seeds, St. Catharines: 1-800-396-9238. www.stokesseeds.com Manitoba’s McFayden Seeds: 1-800-205-7111. www.mcfayden.com Veseys in PEI: 1-800-363-7333. www.veseys.com
Plant pick
Flowering raspberry Rubus odorata
A remarkably pretty native shrub that has started popping up in Toronto’s parks. (Kudos to the city’s plant pooh-bahs.) I spotted it in High Park recently and also a lovely long row at Kew Gardens in the Beach. This produces the oh-so-Canadian fruit called thimbleberry. But even if you don’t bother with the berries, the purplish-pink flowers look lovely in spring: big, rather like rugosa roses. And for city gardeners, it’s fine in part shade. Source: Grand Moraine Growers in Alma, north of Guelph. 519-638-1101. www.grandmorainegrowers.ca
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