in mustard, fruit as in nutmeg or flower bud as in saffron. Soft-stemmed aromatic plants are

generally our herbs. Any soft part of the plant that grows above ground may be the aromatic part

and, like for seeds, the essential oil protects the plant against the insects world.

TASTINGS Americans prefer them spicier

The annual spice and herb consumption in the U.S. gained steadily since the mid-

1970s. The new generation definitely prefers not only spicier foods but hot spicy

foods. The combined total from the hot spices, chilies and black peppers represent

one-third of the total spice consumption in the U.S. in mid-1990s. One reason for the

increase is the popularity of three hot cuisines, Mexican (particularly Tex-Mex),

Cajun and Thai. Another reason is the large Mexican and Asian immigration. Cumin

seeds, turmeric, dill seeds and fennel seeds are also gaining significantly. The most

popular herbs are cilantro, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, mint, dill and

parsley.

The concentration of volatile chemicals is so high in spices that chewing on a single spice

totally overpowers our taste buds and the overall sensation is pretty unpleasant. Chew on a whole

clove, a piece of ginger or a vanilla bean to get the idea. Even the more gentle herbs pack a lot of

power. Try a few sprigs of the mild-flavored parsley. Eaten by itself it is a totally disagreeable taste

sensation.

Where do flavors come from?

Many flavors in our basic foods develop only after some kind of chemical or physical

manipulations of either flavorless food or food whose original flavor is completely different. These

processes are what we collectively call cooking, and include boiling, baking, frying, roasting,

dehydrating, curing and fermenting. Consider raw chicken. Have you even been hungry enough to

eat it? It is bland as raw potato. It needs heat to develop the chicken flavor. Another example is a

mild, almost bland cucumber. Cure it or ferment it, and it becomes a wonderfully tasty pickle,

packed with innumerable new flavor compounds. Some of the flavor comes from the curing

solution, some from the action of the microorganisms in the air.

The particularly complex roasted coffee bean may contain thousands of chemicals, although

a mere 800 have been identified so far. Fewer than 100 of these contribute to the flavor. The science

of flavors and the study of flavor compounds is still relatively new. In the 1960s the number of

known flavoring chemicals was in the hundreds. In the 1990s flavor scientists have a list of over

6,000, many of them synthetic!

How our prepared foods flavored

Industrial cooks and food scientists in food processing and packaging companies very

seldom use real spices and herbs as we do. When they need to flavor, say, a ton of sausage, the

amount in fresh or dried spices and herbs they need is too bulky to store and handle. It is much more

practical to use a few tablespoons of a highly concentrated form of those flavorings. Not only more

practical but they keep fresh-tasting and useable for years while herbs and spices, fresh or dried, go

stale in storage.

These flavor concentrates come in two forms—essential oils, which we already know from

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