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The taboo regarding basil in the old days begins with a story about a girl named Vrinda.  One day she discovers that her husband has been killed. She's so upset that she throws herself on her husband's funeral pyre and is burned also.  The Hindu gods rewarded this act of psychotic love by turning her burnt hair into a sweet-smelling plant named tulsi, or basil.  They order their priests to revere this plant.  Today, we ask people to make an oath by placing their hand on the bible.  In some Indian courts, people are asked to make an oath by placing their hand over a basil bush.  Millions of devout Hindus start their day by praying around the household tulsi plant. In the evening, they will leave a butter lamp burning by it.

How did the basil get from India to Europe? Alexander the Great brought it with him. Now, while the Hindu concentrated on love and devotion surrounding the basil plant, the European-Barbarians were seeing it as a plant that caused madness and decapitation.  This belief of basil causing insanity in the old days is why it was renamed basilicum in Europe.  This was based on a mythical scorpion called the basilisk, which they believed grew in the brain of those that smelled the plant.  This is the source of the Italian custom of "going mad" and screaming obscenities when plucking basil leaves.

Today, basil is put in Italian sauces, as well as other dishes. But it's considered too sacred to be used in Indian cooking.

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Source: "In The Devil's Garden. A Sinful History of Forbidden Food"
By Stewart Lee Allen
Ballantine Publishing Group © 2002

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