Basilicum

So I bought the basil plant and this time it made it home with me! It turned out to be lucky because when I went to look for the basil I found cilantro next to it! So I now have basil and cilantro on my windowsill. That makes me very happy. The cilantro is a little wilted but I'll have to bring it back. It's already seeding, as I see little pods on the bottom of the pot that look like coriander seeds. I already had some beautiful local greenhouse tomatoes and some fresh basil with a little olive oil drizzled on them. I then added a little sea salt and black pepper. As the Dutch would say "Lekker!"

I have been amazed at the Dutch taste for spicy foods. It must be the legacy of the Dutch East India Company or the VOC, as it's known in Dutch. Of course it was created to bring spices and luxury goods from the East to the Netherlands and Europe. The history is fascinating and several books have been written about the 200 years of the VOC from it's founding in 1602 to 1800, so I won't write much about it. Dutch colonization reached as far as New York to Indonesia and South Africa in between.

The territories of the VOC named Batavia would become Jakarta in Indonesia. It started with the intentions of trade but as their interest in the area increased and to fight off competition, it grew to colonization. To give you a sense of how far they traveled I found this map of the basic trade routes. The Dutch even commissioned charting of the West Coast of Australia since they kept running into the coast trying to avoid their competitors on the East Coast of Africa.