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our discussion above and oleoresins.
Oleoresins are also natural concentrates of flavors from aromatic plants, but they are even
more complete than essential oils. They don't only include the characteristic odors and flavors as
essential oils do, but also pigments, pungent constituents and natural antioxidants all of which make
up the total flavor. In many aromatic plants, the difference in flavor between essential oil and
oleoresin is not significant, but for a few, the oleoresin gives a closer duplication of the true flavor
of that particular spice or herb.
How concentrated flavors are made
A process called steam distillation extracts all the essential oils of an aromatic plant. The
process is simple. They slowly heat the plant and they drive off the volatile essential oils before the
moisture evaporates. They collect these volatilized oils, now in vapor form, in cold copper tubes
where they condense.
Most essential oils look like any other cooking oil, but they have a wide range of colors and
very intense scents. You can obtain essential oils yourself by simmering tons of the raw herbs in
water in huge vats. Eventually the oil rises to the surface that you skim off as essential oil.
They get oleoresins by a completely different process using solvents. The chemists dissolve
all flavor components, they remove the solvent, and end up with the highly concentrated oleoresin, a
viscous, resinous substance that looks something like melted candle wax. Starting off with 300
pounds (or 300 kg) of fresh rosemary, for example, you end up with 5½ pounds (or 5½ kg) of
rosemary oleoresin.
Using essential oils and oleoresins does cause one major problem. They are so highly
concentrated that the small amount an industrial recipe calls for must be precisely measured. In
measuring such small amount even a tiny error could ruin an entire batch of food. Just image trying
to mix a quarter cup of a concentrate in a ton of sausage meat. Uniform mixing of such a tiny
quantity is very difficult. To solve the problem, the processors of these concentrates dilute them in
an edible solvent or spray them on some kind of dry, neutral powder like salt, sugar, flour, corn
syrup solids or dextrose (glucose). That way the sausage maker mixes, for instance, two pounds (1
kg) of a powder instead of a quarter cup.
The Mysterious World of Food Enhancers
What are food enhancers
Food enhancers are either naturally occurring or artificially produced organic substances
that enhance and modify the flavor of foods. We rarely use any in our kitchens, yet we eat them all
the time—they are in most processed foods we buy in the grocery store or eat in restaurants. But
they also occur naturally in many fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy.
The branch of science that studies food enhancers is new but the impact of enhancers on our
foods is so great that they are here to stay. So new that even the terminology is confusing. Food
enhancers by some scientists are called food potentiators but the distinction between it and enhancer
is unclear. I just stay with the term enhancer. Food enhancers are not much mentioned in everyday
life, never mentioned in food commercials or acclaimed on processed food labels—food processors
are usually not open to discuss them or refer to them because of possible adverse public reaction,
generally negative to food additives, even if supposedly perfectly harmless and natural.
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