lamington

Even seemingly safe measures can be difficult: The humble tablespoon is 15ml in many places, while the Australian metric tbsp is 20ml... yet my mum's old old pre-metric tablespoon is 30ml. And it's lucky that the US and UK don't often cook with gallons of anything, 'cos their respective gallons differ by about 700ml... Maybe eGulleteers could contribute any culture-specific measures... like how much is that Italian 'wine glass' or a German 'Tasse' or an old-fashioned coffee-cup vs tea-cup... --lamington

That's funny, cos I'm in Melbourne and the places I've bought it have never ever called it coriander! How strange...

The increasing "use fresh herbs" mantra, especially with TV chefs, is silly because it pushes people in one direction without explaining subtleties. Certain herbs (as people have been noting above) are only potent or useful when dried. There has always been a place for the use of dried herbs. Try using fresh basil in a dish which needs the darker flavour of dried basil to permeate it over extended cooking... the fresh basil fades away in comparison (and tastes quite different anyway). That said, many many herbs are much better fresh (rosemary, laurel/bay), and some are almost useless dried (curry leaves, borage?). --lamington

Is Vietnamese Coriander a common label for Viet.mint in the US? Curious.

A (hopefully helpful) tip for Bond Girl... If NYC has a Vietnamese population, then you should be able to find 'Laksa leaves' somewhere, as they're just Vietnamese mint.