Herbs should pass fresh test

Sometimes I think the quest for convenience spoils our appreciation of fresh products.

Gourmet Garden, an Australian company that manufactures convenience herbs in tubes, sent some samples recently.

From the accompanying blurb and the website with recipes (www.gourmetgarden.com) and other information, they sounded good - just like fresh ones, they say (don't they always!).

However, reading the (very) small print, I discovered they have only around 40-50% of the herb specified.

The rest is dextrose (a sweetener), whey or lactose, oil, various acidity regulators, antioxidants, thickeners and humectants.

The ones I tried (basil, garlic, lemon grass and chilli) are sweet and very salty (sodium is 2400-3400mg per 100g) with some of the flavour of the herb but not like the fresh or good dried herbs.

Despite the claims, the tube basil had very little of the slightly aniseed, mint and lively herby taste of fresh basil.

At $5.75 for a 120g tube they are expensive but are they convenient? Well, you just squeeze out the stuff which is about as convenient as you can get, but they do not have a long shelf life - just a month or two - so that is not convenient if you want to keep it on hand for an emergency.

In that case dried herbs are better value at about $2 for 100g.

Best of all is to get a living herb plant from the supermarket for about $3.

If you keep it watered it will last at least a couple of weeks and be so much more enjoyable, even if you have to chop it yourself.

Another alternative is to get a basil pesto (my regular one is locally-made Pasta d'Oro, $6.40 for 150g).

Pesto has parmesan, olive oil and pine or other nuts besides basil and has a more satisfying flavour than the Gourmet Garden basil.

It is also more useful.