Mexicans have their boundless number of local chili varieties.

Cooks around the world today commonly use about 30 fruits and seeds as spices for

flavoring or coloring and about 30 aromatic leaves and flowers as herbs. Almost all flavorings are of

vegetable origin, only a few come from animals. (A glandular secretion of the northern beaver, for

example, is a chewing gum flavoring, while beeswax in honey is a flavor enhancer.)

Flavoring basics

Natural foods range from one end of the taste spectrum to the other: unflavored or mild

foods on one end, like cereal grains, most meats, fish, poultry and milk; moderately flavored, such

as fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds; and on the highly flavored end garlic, onion, herbs, spices,

coffee and cocoa. In most cases natural organic compounds called aromatic essential oils that occur

in food plants give flavorful foods their powerful taste impact. Just put a light dusting of cinnamon

on your tongue and you understand flavor impact. If you want to know the true meaning of the term,

dust a little hot ground chili on your tongue. You get a very powerful flavor (and pain) impact.

Essential oils, also called volatile oils or aromatics, are responsible for the characteristic

flavor and odor of a particular plant or seed. Each essential oil of an herb or spice is actually a

collection of several organic ingredients from just a few in some to a couple of dozen in others. The

essential oil of black pepper, for instance, has 23 organic components. Together, these 23 chemicals,

not unlike the ensemble of individual instruments in a symphony orchestra, give our taste buds a

characteristic taste sensation that translates in the brain stem to a flavor that we instantly recognize

as black pepper.

TASTINGS Example of Essential Oils in Rosemary

Chemical

Compound

% of Total

Essential Oil

<1%

-pinene

camphene

cineole

borneole

camphore

bornyl acetate

terpineol

verbenone

<1%

17-30%

6-20%

10%

2-7%

<1%

Although its impact can be powerful, the essential oil is a very small part of the plant, often

making up only 0.2 to 1 percent of the total weight. The essential oils are within the cell walls. To

release the oils, you have to break the cell walls. Crushing an herb or grinding a spice does exactly

that. Heat intensifies the flavor and aroma as it drives more of the oils out of the cell walls. Nearly

all herbs and spices need this application of heat before they fully release their aromatic components

but there are exceptions. For example, cinnamon sprinkled on your rice pudding gives full flavor

impact without any heat.

Spices contain a more concentration of volatile chemicals than herbs. Spices are hard-

stemmed plants and often it is their seeds that contain the flavorings. Some spices, on the other

hand, can come from the root, as in horseradish, rhizome as in ginger, bark as in cinnamon, seed as

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