About basil, the king of herbs

My grandmother told me you never cut basil with a knife, but you only chop it with your fingers right away into the dish you are preparing, otherwise it will loose its flavour. Also, the best way to keep its aroma is adding it at the very last.
I really don’t know if it’s true or not, but you will always see me chopping basil leaves with my fingers.
That’s why last night I scared Manu to death when I yelled “NOOOOO!!!” when I saw him cutting some basil with a knife, that he dropped immediately, backing terrified and staring at me like someone that just woke up after a nightmare.
I know, I’m sometimes a kind of exaggerated, but I’m a maniac of certain kind of practices and traditions, especially of those that I learned when I was a kid, while helping my mother or my grandmother.
Basil is an herb that is cultivated in every Italian garden or terrace, it just needs warm and sun and it’s delicious with so many summer recipes, even the most basic pasta with fresh tomatoes gets a “royal” flavour when you add few leaves of fresh basil: not surprisingly, its name seems to come from the Greek basileus that means king…