Transcript Spices - Faculty

Spices
Volatile Oils
Introduction
• Spice: An aromatic and/or pungent plant
product, employed for imparting an aroma to
food.
• Food adjuncts, and owing to their principles ,
stimulate secretion of gastric juices, thereby
increasing appetite and aiding digestion.
• Has very small nutritive value, though some
possess appreciable amounts of proteins,
starches and oils
History
• Spices were much sought out products
and used in preservatives, beverages,
medicines, and even exchange for money
• Spices were among the first objects of
commerce between East and West
• Columbus’s famous voyage was inspired
by the idea of finding a shorter route to
India, the home of many spices
Uses
• Important food adjuncts
– Help to avoid monotony
– Disguise unpleasant odor
– Aid digestion
– Increase rate of perspiration, resulting in
lowering body temperature.
• Medicinal – carminative and antispectic
• Perfumes, soaps, incenses, dyes
Chemistry
• Terpenes, alkaloids, phenols and sulfur
containing compounds
• Volatile oils, or essential oils
• Terpenes: Basic unit is isoprene unit (C5)
• Monoterpenes (C10): small non-polar
therefore volatile.
Ecology
• Volatile compounds used to attract
pollinators and repel herbivores.
• Some compounds are allelopathic prevent the growth of other plants via
inhibition of germination and killing
competitors.
Herb or a spice??
• What’s in the name?
Spices from Mediterranean Region
Lamiaceae
•
•
Mint family with fragrant leaves. Mainly has monoterpenes such as carvone,
thymol, menthol.. Also contain gums, resins and tannins; carminative
Rosemary - Rosmarinus officinalis – borneol; used mainly tea, perfume, and
cooking
Thyme - Thymus vulgaris – Thymol; mouth washes, cough drops, cooking
Oregano - Origanum vulgare - Italian food
Marjoram - Origanum majorana - milder flavor than oregano
Basil - Ocimum basilicum - basil - pasta sauces
Sage - Salvia officinalis - Used medicinally by Greeks through Middle Ages but
modern testing indicates sage has no medicinal properties. Used to flavor poultry
and other meats, especially sausage.
Spearmint - Mentha spicata
Peppermint - Mentha peperita - most frequently used mint - jelly, candy, medicines,
obnoxious gum commercials, etc.
Magic Mint
• Sage plant: Salvia divinorum
– Active ingredient, Salvinorin A, is a powerful
hallucinogen; Dr. Bryan Roth, Case Western Reserve
University
– Same as LSD – specific to a single receptor in the
brain.
– Most potent naturally occurring hallucinogenic drug
– Similar to opioids
– an instantaneous trip to another time and place
– Usually unpleasant
Carrot family
Apiaceae
• Fruit is a cremocarp, with two easily separable mericarps (looks like
seed) Different set of monoterpenes. Limonene, pinene, linool.
• Herbage
– Parsley - Petroselinum crispum – garnish
– Chervil - Anthriscus cerefolium
– Dill - Anethum graveolens – pickling
– Cilantro - Coriandrum sativum - Mexican, Indian dishes
• Dried fruits (Spices) - fruit is composed of pericarp and seed, oils are in
fruit wall
– Fennel - Foeniculum vulgare - Italian sausage
– Cumin - Cuminum cyminum - Indian and Mexican foods
– Anise - Pimpinella anisum - Licorice flavor
– Celery seed - Apium sativum
– Caraway seed - Carum carvi -rye breads, sauerkraut
Brassicaceae
•
Glucosinolates changing to thiocyntes upon crushing
– Sulfur containing compounds
– Myrosinase (enzyme) spatially separated; hydrolyses the compound
•
Spices:
– Black mustard - Brassica nigra - native to Europe
– White mustard - Brassica alba
– Horseradish- Armoracia rusticana - grated roots
•
Odds and ends
Tarragon - Artemisia dracunculus – Asteraceae; used in vinegar in S. Russia
Bay leaves - Laurus nobilis – Lauraceae; from Meditteranean
Saffron - Crocus sativus - Iridaceae (Iris family), most costly spice, comes from
stigmas, requires 150,000 flowers/kg
Spices from Old World Tropics
• "True" cinnamon - Cinnamomum zeylandica "Common" cinnamon Cinnamomum cassia (Lauracceae)
– Both cinnamons are from SE Asia and are obtained from the
bark. Tannins, mucilage, starch and sweet mannitol.
• Cloves - Syzygium aromaticum – Myrtaceae; from Spice Islands or
Indonesia, harvested as immature flower buds, used in Indonesian
cigars, clove oil, but oil can be synthetically produced.
• Nutmet and mace - Myristica fragrans - nutmeg is the dried
endosperm of seed, not a true nut, toxic in large quantities, put on
egg nog; mace is netlike aril around seed. Myristicin –
hallucinogenic.
• Cardamon - Elettaria cardamomum – Zinger family; oils originally
used in medicine, now used in Indian cooking and Danish pastry
• Ginger - Zingiber officinale – rhizome
• Pepper - Piper nigrum - drupes, most important spice in terms of
quantities, can make raw drupes into black or white pepper
depending on processing
New World Spices
• Allspice - Pimenta dioica - mostly grown in Jamaica,
combination of flavors of cinnamon, cloves and netmeg.
Unripe fruit –eugenol
• Peppers:
– Bell peppers, chiltecpin (tiny and hot) - Capsicum annuum paprika is made from dried, powdered members of this species
– Pungent peppers - Capsicum fructescens - tabasco sauce
Compound responsible for hot flavor is capsaicin, which is
contained in the placenta
• Vanilla - Vanilla planifolia - only crop from Orchidaceae over 20,000 species in this family, fruit is called a bean
but is a false berry from an inferior ovary, vanilla is the
2nd most expensive spice due to laborious cultivation
and processing requirements, vanilla can be made
synthetically but taste is inferior to natural vanilla.