FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
OCIMUM BASILICUM Labiatae, SWEET BASIL
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a Western and tropical Asia. A fragrant and aromatic plant of tropical Asia, which, as a culinary plant, has been celebrated from a very early period. McIntosh says it was condemned by Chrysippus more than 200 years before Christ as an enemy to the sight and a robber of the wits. Diodorus and Hoeerus entertained equally superstitious notions regarding it. Philistis, Plistonicus and others extolled its virtues and recommended it as strongly as it had been formerly condemned. Pliny says the Romans sowed the seeds of this plant iwth maledictions and ill words, believing the more it was cursed the better it would prosper; and when they wished for a crop, they trod it down with their feet and prayed to the gods that it might not vegetate. It seems to have been first cultivated in Britain in 1548 and is now valued for the leaves and leafy tops, which are much employed for seasoning soups, stews, sauces and various other dishes. It reached America before 1806 as it is then mentioned by McMahon as a well-known plant. Sweet basil seeds, according to Miss bird, are eaten in Japan.
