IV.

Types of Spices and Herbs

The great variety of herb and spice flavours are produced from nearly all parts of plants, from the leaves to the roots. Among those producing fragrant leaves are basil, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme, all of which are small annual or perennial plants. Bayleaf, or sweet laurel, used to flavour meats, sauces, and vinegars, comes from a shrub or tree.

Among the many spices derived from the ripe fruit or seeds of plants are aniseed (from anise), caraway seed, chilli peppers, coriander seed, dill seed (from dill), fennel seed, mustard, nutmeg, pepper, poppy seed, and sesame seed. Liquorice-flavoured aniseed, which comes from Pimpinella anisum, a member of the carrot family, is used whole for baking and as an essential oil in sweets and the liqueurs absinthe and anisette. Juniper berry, used to flavour gin, comes from the low evergreen shrub Juniperus communis. The strongest mustard seed comes from black mustard, Brassica nigra, which was probably the large plant mentioned in the Bible and which now grows in Israel to a height of 3.7 m (12 ft). Powdered mustard seed releases its pungent flavour when it is moistened. The flavour is preserved by lemon juice, vinegar, or wine in prepared mustard. Nutmeg is the seed of an apricot-like fruit of the tropical evergreen tree Myristica fragrans. The net-like red coat around the seed is made into mace, another spice used to flavour pickles, ketchups, and sauces. Sesame seeds were ground into flour by the Egyptians and used by the Chinese 5,000 years ago. The pearly, nut-flavoured seeds, used especially in Middle Eastern cooking, come from the annual Sesamum indicum and are scattered in the wild by the drying pod, making hand harvesting necessary.

Among the spices derived from bulbs and roots are garlic and ginger. Garlic, Allium sativum, which is a bulb made up of many cloves and closely related to the onion, originated in Central Asia and is one of the oldest spices. Ginger comes from the fleshy, aromatic, bulb-like rhizomes (underground stems) of the perennial Zingiber officinale. The rhizomes are sold commercially as root ginger or dried and ground into ginger powder. The essential oil is used to make ginger-flavoured beverages, sauces, and chutneys.