Basil

Basil has followed cooks and healers alike for thousands of years, moving from ancient Mediterranean kitchens to Ayurvedic medicine chests to the herb pots on modern windowsills. In Italy it became the soul of pesto and summer sauces, while traditional European and South Asian herbalism turned to its warm, clove scented leaves as a tea for settling an uneasy stomach after a heavy meal. Cooks and grandmothers both came to trust it as an herb that soothes as readily as it seasons, a plant equally at home easing a fussy digestion or brightening a plate of tomatoes. Note that sweet basil, Ocimum basilicum, is a culinary cousin of holy basil or tulsi, Ocimum tenuiflorum, which carries its own separate and deeply sacred history in India.