"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices."
(Song of Songs 4:13-14)
The perfumes of good cooking not only make us salivate, they also cause us to throb with a desire that is, if not erotic, closely related to it. Close your eyes and try to remember the exact bouquet of a skillet in which delicate onions, noble garlic cloves, stoic red peppers, and tender tomatoes are sizzling in olive oil. Now imagine how that fragrance changes when we add three threads of saffron followed by a fresh fish marinated in herbs, then, finally, a spurt of wine and juice of a lemon. The result is as exciting as the most sensual of exhalations and a thousand times more than any bottled perfume.
Isabel Allende, from Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses
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Various Exotic Herbs and Spices in Bowls
Photographic Print
Cassio, Alberto
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