One of the most popular and widely available of all culinary herbs, parsley is a common ingredient in many cuisines around the world.
There are two main varieties of parsley that are of interest to the cook, curled parsley and flat leaf parsley.
Curled parsley Petroselinum crispum is a small annual plant that grows to a height of 30 cm (12 in). It has a dense abundance of tightly furled, bright green leaves that have a distinctive ruffled edge to the leaves. This is the variety that you will most likely encounter at the greengrocers as well as on a plate used as a garnish. It has a milder flavour than flat leaf parsley.
Flat leaf or Italian parsley P. crispum neapolitanum grows to the slightly greater height of 40 cm (16 in). It's foliage is comparatively sparser than curled parsley and has, as you would expect, flattened leaves that are arranged into 3 segments. The colour of flat leaf parsley is deep green. This variety tends to be sought out by chefs as it has a more intense flavour.
Parsley is native to the Eastern Mediterranean and was known to the classical Greeks, not as a culinary herb, but used symbolically for funeral ceremonies. The herb's
well known property as a breath freshener was used by the Romans as early as the second century AD to cover the tell tale aroma of indulging in too much wine.
In the kitchen parsley has a myriad of uses, as its flavour is complimentary to so many ingredients. It is an essential component in the French melange of herbs, fines herbes. It is one of the major ingredients in the famous Middle Eastern salad tabouleh, it is used in all manner of herb based sauces such as salsa verde and agresto sauce. It can also enliven a whole range of savoury dishes by using as a scatter garnish, either in the classic Italian combination, gremolata, or simply on its own.