HERBS AND SPICES

Herbs and Spices

herbs are any plants used
for flavoring, food,
medicine, or perfume.
Culinary use typically
distinguishes herbs as
referring to the leafy green
parts of a plant (either
fresh or dried), from a
"spice", a product from
another part of the plant
(usually dried), including
seeds, berries, bark, roots
and fruits.
Essential oils
An essential oil is a
concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing
volatile arom compounds from plants. Essential
oils are also known as volatile oils ,ethereal
oils, aetherolea, or simply as the "oil of" the
plant from which they were extracted, such
as oil of clove. An oil is "essential" in the sense
that it carries a distinctive scent, or essence, of
the plant. Essential oils do not form a distinctive
category for any medical, pharmacological, or
culinary purpose.
Essential oils are generally extracted
by distillation, often by using steam. Other
processes include expression or solvent
extraction. They are used in
perfumes cosmetics soaps and other products,
for flavoring food and drink, and for adding
scents to incense and household cleaning
products.
History of Spices

The Spice trade developed

throughout South Asia and Middle
East in around 2000 BCE
with cinnamon and pepper, and
in East Asia with herbs and pepper.
The Egyptians used herbs
for embalming and their demand for
exotic herbs helped stimulate world
trade. By 1000 BCE, medical systems
based upon herbs could be found in
China, Korea, and India. Early uses
were connected with magic, medicine,
religion, tradition, and preservation.
History
Historians believe that nutmeg, which originates
from the Banda Islands in South Asia, was
introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE.
Indonesian merchants traveled around China,
India, the Middle East, and the east coast of
Africa. Arab merchants facilitated the routes
through the Middle East and India. This resulted in
the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the
main trading center for spices. The most important
discovery prior to the European spice trade were
the monsoon winds (40 CE). Sailing from Eastern
spice growers to Western European consumers
gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes
once facilitated by the Middle East Arab
caravans.
 Spices
Pepper
Scientific name Piper nigrum
Is a flowering vine in the
family Piperaceae, cultivated for
its fruit, which is usually dried and
used as a spice and seasoning
Described simply as pepper, or
more precisely as black
pepper (cooked and dried unripe
fruit), green pepper (dried unripe
fruit) and white pepper (unripe
fruit seeds).
Black pepper is native to
south India, and is extensively
cultivated there and elsewhere
in tropical regions
Cinnamon
is a spice obtained from the
inner bark of several trees from
the genus Cinnamomm that is
used in both sweet and savory
foods. While Cinnamomum
verum is sometimes considered to
be "true cinnamon", most
cinnamon in international
commerce is derived from
related species, which are also
referred to as "cassia" to
distinguish them from "true
cinnamon".
 Cloves
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a
tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium
aromaticum, native to the Maluku
islands in Indonesia, commonly employed
as spice. Cloves are harvested primarily
in Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka- and the largest
producer, Pemba Island, just off the coast
of Tanzania.
 Nutmeg
The nutmeg tree is any of several
species of trees in
genus Myristica. The most
important commercial species
is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen
tree indigenous to the Banda
Islands in the Moluccas (or Spice
Islands) of Indonesia.
 Ginger
Ginger or ginger root is
the rhizome of the
plant Zingiber officinale, consumed
as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It
lends its name to its genus and
family (Zingiberaceae). Other
notable members of this plant
family are turmeric, cardamom,
and galangal. The distantly
related dicots in the Asarum genus
have the common name wild ginger
because of their similar taste.
 Saffrons

Saffron is a spice derived from

the flower of Crocus sativus,
commonly known as the saffron
crocus. Crocus is a genus in the
family Iridaceae.
Saffron, long among the world's
most costly spices by weight, is
native to Greece or Southwest
Asia and was first cultivated in
Greece.
 Vanilla
Vanilla is a flavor derived
from orchids of the genus Vanilla,
primarily from the Mexican
species, flat-leaved vanilla (V.
planifolia). The word vanilla, derived
from the diminutive of the Spanish
word vaina (vaina itself meaning
sheath or pod), simply translates as
little pod. Pre-
Columbian Mesoamerican people
cultivated the vine of the vanilla
orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs,
and Spanish conquistador Hernn
Corts is credited with introducing
both vanilla and chocolate to Europe
in the 1520s.
 Chili

The chili pepper is the fruit of plants

from the genus Capsicum, members of
the nightshade family Solanaceae. The
term in British English and in Australia,
New Zealand, India, Malaysia and other
Asian countries is just chili without
"pepper".
Chili peppers originated in the Americas.
After the Columbian Exchange,
many cultivars of chili pepper spread
across the world, used in both food and
medicine. These chili peppers arrived in
Asia by the hand of the Portuguese
navigators during the 16th century.
Herbs
Parsley or garden
parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
is a species of Petroselinum in
the family Apiaceae, native
to the central Mediterranean
region(southern Italy, Algeria,
and Tunisia), naturalized else
where in Europe, and widely
cultivated as an herb, a spice,
and a vegetable.
Mint
Mints are aromatic, almost
exclusively perennial, rarely annual, herbs.
They have wide-spreading underground and
over ground stolons and erect,
square, branched stems. The leaves are
arranged in opposite pairs, from oblong
to lanceolate, often downy, and with
a serrate margin. Leaf colors range from
dark green and gray-green to purple, blue,
and sometimes pale yellow. The flowers are
white to purple and produced in false whorls
called verticillasters. The corolla is two-
lipped with four subequal lobes, the upper
lobe usually the largest. The fruit is a nutlet,
containing one to four seeds
 Oregano
Oregano is an important culinary
herb, used for the flavor of its leaves,
which can be more flavorful when
dried than fresh. It has an aromatic,
warm and slightly bitter taste, which
can vary in intensity. Good quality
oregano may be strong enough almost
to numb the tongue, but the cultivars
adapted to colder climates often have
a lesser flavor. Factors such as climate,
seasons and soil composition may
affect the aromatic oils present, and
this effect may be greater than the
differences between the various
species of plants.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND DETAILS
JUST TYPE WWW.GOOGLE.COM AND SEARCH HERBS
AND SPICES

SALAMAT PO MWAHMWAHTSUPTSUPSLURPSLURP :D