Essential aromatics from plants

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Essential aromatics from plants
dogmouth.net/photos/thailand/doi-suthep/
www.buiga.com/images/vanilla20Beans.jpg
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Herbs

• From green plant parts
• Botanical vs culinary herbs
• Still overlap between herbs and spices
• For example

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Bay laurel

• Laurus nobilis
• Same family as cinnamon
• Compounds include eugenol, cineol, others in
  common with cinnamon
• Think about how its used

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Sassafras

• Also in the Lauraceae
• Several NA species
• Name means stone breaker
• Became very popular in 17th century Europe
• Bark of roots most commonly used
• Safrol, eugenol, camphor
• Safrol now known to be carcinogenic
• Little or none in leaves
• Ground leaves used in filè powder (for gumbo)
  other Creole and Cajun dishes

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Onion family

• Some 400 species of Allium
• All over northern hemisphere
• Eaten for 1000s of years
• May have been one of the earliest cultivated
  foods
• May have symbolized eternity in Greece
• Pretty much all are bulbs

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Production of sulfur compounds is complex
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Variety of sulfur compounds in members of the
onion family

• The lacrimatory factor in onion
• isoallin is precursor
• propanethial S-oxide
• sulfuric acid is released when this reaches the
  eye
• reduce tears by cutting under water, freezing the
  onion, or cutting near a flame
• Thiosulfinates also produced in a similar way

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http//www.rabimusah.com/organosulfur.htm
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Onion health benefits

• The thiosulfinates reduce platelet aggregation,
  one of the early steps in blood clotting.
• Fructans (chains of fructose) associated with
  reduced colorectal cancer
• The two may work together

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Mild (low pungency) onions

• There is a genetic component (yellow burmuda)
• Low sulfur soil
• Attempts have been made to genetically engineer a
  low-pungency onion
• anti-sense DNA

http//www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1999
/v4-374.html
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• Only onions grown in several SE Georgia counties
  can be called Vidalia

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Garlic

• Allium sativum
• Found only in cultivation
• Use also ancient, as are complaints about the
  smell
• Probably used more widely as medicine in ancient
  times
• Health benefits being investigated
• Many varieties

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Ramps

• Native north American (Allium tricoccum)
• Name from European relative
• Spring tonic tradition, still in West Virginia
  and North Carolina
• Combined onion-garlic flavor
• Milder than other wild onions

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Wild onions in the lawn

• Allium vineale (wild garlic) probably more common
  (rounder hollow stem)
• Allium canadense (our wild onion)
• Possibly edible but nasty

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Apiaceae

• Carrot/parsley family
• Herbs, cosmopolitan, most diversity in
  north-temperate regions

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Alternate or basal leaves, with sheathing
petioles and oil tubules
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Characteristic inflorescence, often umbels
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Flowers perfect, 5 sepals, petals, stamens
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2 fused carpels, inferior ovary often with nectar
on top Fruit often a schizocarp
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Parsley

• Petroselinum crispum
• Favorite European herb
• Probably native to Mediterranean
• Ancients didnt always distinguish from celery

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Flavors in parsley

• Parsley
• 1,3,8-menthatriene gives the characteristic odor
  and flavor
• also myristicine, phellandrene

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Dill

• Anethum graveolens
• Common name from Norse, calming
• Dill oil extracted for use in pickles
• compounds from dill
• dill ether
• phellandrene in foliage, converted to high
  carvone content in seeds

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Cilantro

• Coriandrum sativum
• Name refers to bedbugs
• Some people hate it, rumor of genetic reason
• Distinctive flavor of leaves mostly due to
  alkenals
• Perhaps highly volatile?

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Mint Family

• Lamiaceae
• Large, cosmopolitan family
• Most herbs and shrubs
• 4-angled stems and opposite leaves
• 2-lipped flowers
• fruit with four nutlets

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• Largest family for kitchen herbs
• From dry, Mediterranean climates, lots of
  chemical defenses
• Oils may make up 10 of the leaf weight

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Spearmint

• M. spicata
• carvone, limonene, dihydrocarvone, menthone,
  pulegone, 1,8-cineol and ß-pinene

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Peppermint

• Mentha piperita
• Hybrid between spearmint and water mint
• Menthol is the dominant odor compound, but there
  are others
• M. arvensis is the one most grown for the oil

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Menthol

• Used in many products
• Also can be produced synthetically

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Rosemary

• Rosmarinus officinalis
• Name probably nothing to do with Mary, rather
  means dew of the sea
• Cineol, camphor, pinene included in essential oil
• More potent dried than fresh

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Thyme

• Thymus vulgaris and many others of lesser
  culinary value
• Name probably goes back to perfume or incense
• Especially popular in France
• Also perhaps better dried

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Sage

• Salvia officinalis, and lots of others
• Thujone one of the aroma compounds
• Also found in wormwood, absinthe
• Also camphor, cineol
• Use more limited today than in the past

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Basil

• Ocimum basilicum
• Originally from tropical Asia
• King of herbs
• Fabulous fresh, useless dried
• Why?

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Aroma compounds in basil

• Many different compounds in different types of
  basil
• Many are terpenes, more volatile than eugenol,
  etc
• 1,8 cineol, linalool, citral, estragole, eugenol
  and methyl cinnamate, camphor (in African
  basils), ocimene, geraniol, etc etc
• Linalool is probably especially characteristic of
  the more delicate basils

linalool
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Catnip

• Nepeta cataria
• Many of species of Nepeta too
• In the past, used to induce sweating in people
• Ingredient that affects cats is the terpene
  nepetalactone
• Said to be sensed via the vomeronasal organ
• Hereditary susceptibility

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citrus smell
piney smell
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s-carvone (caraway smell)
Mirror compounds
r-carvone (spearmint smell)
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