Ask Peter: Fresh or dried herbs?

In your opinion which is the best — dried or fresh herbs? I thought fresh was best, but maybe it depends where you buy them from? Elaine
Both fresh and dried herbs can play a key part in your cooking and they are both worth having to hand. But some work better than others and you do need to have an understanding of what they bring to your food, if anything at all.
Some dried herbs, such as basil, dill or parsley, seem pointless to me. I just don’t think their delicacy works as a dried herb. The fresh aniseed tones of basil become rather musty, and dill becomes so concentrated that it loses the delicate aroma and flavour that I love so much when it’s tossed fresh, and in large amounts, with tomatoes, feta and olive oil.
These herbs can work when used for things you wouldn’t normally use them for such as marinating a haunch of venison or a slow brown meat braise, but making pesto from dried basil is something I shudder to think about. Can you imagine it?
And why people would need to use dried parsley is beyond me. It’s an easy-enough-to-grow herb. Once when I was served it in scrambled eggs I sent them back, appalled that anyone would do that. However, dried oregano is lovely when added sparingly to pasta sauces or used to top a mozzarella and tomato pizza. I’ve used it in bread and pasta dough, in a version of chimichurri sauce and in soups and stews.
Dried oregano, of course, comes in varying qualities and I have to say that the best I’ve had has come from Turkey, where it more resembles a cross between oregano and marjoram. Rubbed between your fingers and crumbled over freshly sliced tomatoes, or even on scrambled eggs, it is delicious.