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wrote:
>
> I just recieved a pound or so of fresh basil. What can I do with it
> besides make pesto sauce? I very interested in some ideas where I can
> freeze the results.

Soups
Salads
Tomato sauce
Fresh pork sausage
Meat balls
Meat loaf

Basil
(Ocimum basilicum)

Aka "herb royal" and "basilica," this member of the mint family
originated in India, called tulasi, and was sacred to the Hindu Gods
Krisha and Vishnu. It is traditionally placed on the breast of a dead
Hindi. Its current name derives from the Greek basileus, meaning
"king." In fact, however, ancient Greek and Roman physicians considered
it a symbol of hostility and insanity and believed it could only be
grown if its seeds were sown amid curses. Likewise, its association
with scorpions. Pliny claimed that when it was pounded by a stone, it
would transform itself into them, a fairly frightening thought to pesto
aficionados.

By contrast, Europeans during the Middle Ages believed it could only be
cultivated by a beautiful woman--and it was commonly given and received
as a token of romantic love.

Witness the gothic poem by John Keats, based on Boccaccio's morbid
story in The Decameron (Fourth Day, Fifth Tale). Here it is that a pair
of social climbing Florentine brothers disapprove of their sister's
lower born lover Lorenzo--and kill him, burying his body in the forest.
Sister Isabella is told he has gone away, but one night she sees
Lorenzo in a dream, and he reveals his terrible fate. She sets off with
her old nurse, finds the grave, digs him up, and brings his severed
head back home to bury in a pot of basil. Watering it with her tears,

Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
>From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.

Eventually, the brothers catch on--and flee Florence, taking the basil
away from Isabel at the same time. Poor thing. Of course she goes mad
and dies.

Certainly unrelated to this story, basil has, from time immemorial, had
a reputation for soothing stomach aches and cramps--and assisting
digestion. From whence its flavor? The leaves are dotted with tiny oil
cells that contain anethole (like anise), estragole (like tarragon),
eucalyptol, eugenol (like cloves and allspice), and linalool (like
French lavender). [SS]

Sheldon