Spring has sprung, and that means fresh dill!

Published May 7, 2023

by Janet Blaser

Springtime means that lots of beautiful produce starts appearing in markets and shops that we haven’t seen for a while. Mazatlán’s farmers’ market last weekend was a good example, with a cornucopia of goodies spilling from baskets, boxes and tables.

Fresh herbs were in abundance: fragrant bunches of basil (albahaca, pronounced “al-bah-cah”), parsley (perejil), sage (salvia), rosemary (romero) and — could it be?! — fresh dill (eneldo).

Fresh dill is something that isn’t found often, at least where I live, so this was a treat. I love having fresh herbs in the kitchen, and while cilantro is always wonderful and I appreciate having it available year-round for literally pennies, having other options is cool too.

It’s dill that we crave in pickles, in a sour cream dip or in a sauce for salmon. Minced fresh dill brightens up almost any potato or dairy dish, lending its characteristic flavor and aroma and adding a note of complexity. A simple summer salad of sliced cucumbers, rice wine vinegar, salt, freshly ground black pepper and some fresh dill is a welcome dish for the hot summer days ahead.

Traces of dill have been found in some of the pharaoh’s tombs in Egypt, dating to 1400 B.C. It’s a kitchen staple in Scandinavia, Russia, Ukraine and central and eastern Europe (think borscht or gravlax). Dill is not used very extensively in Mexican cuisine, other than in the dishes mentioned above.

Fresh dill will always have the most flavor, and while you can freeze the fresh stuff, it won’t taste quite the same or be as strong. Dried dill and dill seeds can also be found, each of which has a slightly different though distinctively dill flavor.

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