Many spicy plants have been known to people since time immemorial. Initially, they were used for various rituals, and only later they began to be actively used in cooking and medicine.
Types of Spicy Plants
Spices have long and firmly entered our daily lives. They have become so familiar to us that we don’t even notice how often we use them. Meanwhile, we cook or preserve food daily, using spicy plants. All of their diversity can be divided into the following types:
- Spicy aromatic.
- Spicy and flavoring.
Spicy aromatic plants have an original smell. And spicy and flavoring have a specific taste.
In the course of research it was found that spice-flavoring plants and spicy-aromatic plants have antiseptic, preservative, medicinal and bactericidal properties. The composition of spices includes essential oils and other very valuable substances that improve the culinary properties of products, as well as stimulate taste buds, digestive system activity, enhance food digestibility, cause appetite, and have a beneficial effect on the metabolism and on the whole organism.
Most of them are brought to us from far away, since many plants (spice) grow only in the subtropics or tropics. But on the territory of our country there are many representatives of the family of spicy plants growing in the wild. And in our gardens it is customary to grow a variety of herbs, which are successful not only for eating, but are also used in a variety of industries.
Variety of spices
Spicy plants are divided into six groups:
- Sharp-bitter, with a slight aroma. These include horseradish, pepper, mustard and others.
- Bitter, but with a sharp spicy aroma - hops, allspice, ginger, cloves, laurel, calamus, hyssop and others.
- With a very strong, but not at all spicy sugary aroma and a light spicy taste - nutmeg, cinnamon, clover, lovage, coriander.
- With a light and delicate spicy smell - marjoram, savory, caraway seeds, cardamom.
- With individual properties - onions, garlic, dill, fennel, sage, anise, mint.
- Drinks are plants used to make all kinds of drinks.
To give the drink a noble aroma and specific taste, different cultivated plants are used. For example, marjoram, peppermint, medicinal rosemary, basil, thyme, fennel, dill, coriander. Wild plants are also used for this purpose: wormwood, calamus, angelica, bison, elecampane, barberry, licorice, cranberries, currants. At the same time, completely different spicy plants use different parts: seeds, flowers, roots, leaves.
Use of Spicy Plants
Many spicy plants produce products for various household purposes. For example, some of them are used as ingredients for the preparation of salads (lovage, barago, cucumber herb leaves, nasturtium, mint, dandelion).
Some plants with a spicy smell are used in the pharmaceutical and perfumery industries, since they contain essential oils and biological active substances (basil, lemon balm, savory, dill, mint). They have strong medicinal properties, and therefore are used as medicinal.
Spicy-aromatic plants and spicy-flavoring are used for cooking fried, boiled or fresh. Their sour, bitter, spicy, pungent and aromatic substances flavour food, giving it an original taste, improving taste. In general, this helps to improve the absorption of food by the human body.
Spicy medicinal plants
Many aromatic plants have medicinal properties, and therefore they have been used as medicinal for many centuries. Biological active substances are present in many wild-growing and grown plants, they favorably affect the whole organism as a whole, normalizing the work of individual organs.
We give an example of such herbs. The same mint is a medicinal and spicy plant, which is very common in summer cottages and vegetable gardens. Oregano, katovnik, coriander, thyme, and frankincense also have spice-healing properties.
Spice Harvesting
Leaves of spicy plants, seeds, roots, flowers can be collected in nature, or some of them can be planted in your own garden. Caring for them does not require any colossal knowledge and skills. In general, there are about three hundred plant species that are used as spices.
Spicy plants (photos are given in the article) are grown not only by amateur gardeners, but also on industrial plantations.
In our latitudes, gardeners most often plant the following herbs: basil, fennel, lovage, marigolds, cilantro, mint, thyme, oregano, celery and many others. In cooking, seeds of spicy plants, roots, flowers and stems are used. When making preparations for such herbs, you need to know when and what parts of the plant to collect, and how to do it correctly. For example, if you need to prepare the ground part, then you should do it after the full development of the plant (as a rule, this happens in the summer). Raw materials are collected in the evening so that there is no dew. Before this, it is not worth watering the plants, but after the collection you need to fill the beds well, which will give an impetus to a new stage in the development of culture.
You should know that all spices need to be harvested in moderation. If you have a small family, then zeal is not worth it. The fact is that dried essential oil-bearing herbs are not stored for more than a year, and therefore it is better to harvest a fresh crop every season than to use perennial harvestings that have lost most of their useful properties.
Perennial spicy plants
Previously, the assortment of spices on store shelves was not as wide as it is today. Now in any supermarket you can find a good choice. Yes, and in the plots of land currently grown a lot of spices, and not just dill and parsley, since seed shops offer a large selection of seeds.
Basil is very popular now. Some mistakenly consider it a purely southern culture, but this is not entirely true. Such a plant can be grown in central Russia.
There are different types of basil - bunch-shaped, spoon-shaped, large, small. All varieties are distinguished by aroma, colors and taste. The classic plant goes well with meat and cheese. But the plant with a lemon smell is suitable for desserts, drinks and salads. Basil clove flavor is used to make marinades. The most stable aroma is possessed by young plants at the very beginning of flowering.
In nature, there are low and high varieties of basil, with green, purple, smooth, corrugated, small and large leaves. The seeds of the crop for greenery can be sown in open ground at the same time as cucumbers.
Basil is a very beautiful plant, so it is not necessary to plant it on the beds. It is enough to place several plants in the middle of flower arrangements.
Coriander
Coriander (cilantro) is a very popular culture. It is grown not only for greens, but also for seeds. If you are a fan of fresh green cilantro, then the seeds can be sown several times: from spring to mid-summer, withstanding time intervals of two to three weeks. Last year's seeds are used to breed crops. Fresh do not germinate. Flowering plants begins with a sufficiently long daylight. If the seeds are sown at a time when the day is already beginning to shorten, then there will be no flowering.
If you grow cilantro for the sake of seeds, then plant umbrellas need to be cut off when they become golden. Full ripening is better not to wait, because the seeds may spill out. Umbrellas are dried and then threshed.
At home, coriander seeds are stored in a glass jar, like any spice. Grind cilantro in small portions in a coffee grinder as needed. Ground seeds quickly lose their smell.
Parsley
Root parsley is grown to produce white root vegetables. They are crushed and put in soups, stews, stews. In cooking, plant leaves are also widely used. Culture refers to perennials. Root crops are frost-resistant, and therefore easily winter in the soil, and the leaf part even tolerates light autumn and spring and frosts. For parsley growth, the optimum temperature is 16-18 degrees. At higher temperatures, the development and growth of the culture slows down, but there is an accumulation of aroma and essential oils in the leaves. There are more than ten varieties of culture: Eagle, Oriental, Alba, Piquant, Lyubasha and others.
Thyme vegetable
Thyme is often also called Bogorodskaya grass. It belongs to perennials. Thyme forms lush thickets and has a characteristic aroma. When a plant blooms, its stems are cut with a knife.
Thyme is a beautiful compact bush. But he does not always win winters. Even at the end of winter, an evergreen plant has green foliage, but if the soil does not thaw for a long time, it may die from drought. It turns out that the leaves in the sun give off a lot of moisture, and the roots cannot get moisture from the frozen soil. In such cases, you can try to water the plant with warm water and cover with peat. Thyme on the site can live up to three years if he likes the space reserved for him.
Lovage
Lovage is a perennial plant, growing up to two meters in height. The culture has fleshy roots and fairly large leaves. The plant is very stable; even severe winters are not afraid of it. Ground parts suffer short-term freezing up to minus eight degrees. In cooking, not only the roots of the plant are used, but also the leaves. Fresh herbs are placed in the salad, the seeds are added to the brine to vegetables, and the roots are used as a spicy seasoning. The most commonly grown varieties of lovage are Don Juan, Heracles, Cupid, Leader, Udalets.
Oregano
Oregano is a spice with which there is some confusion. In the standard version, this name means marjoram. But we offer oregano under this name. Of course, both plants are herbs, but vary greatly in taste. Their leaves and inflorescences are widely used in cooking, adding to salads, pizza, meat dishes, sauces and pastas.
Marjoram flavors duck, roasted goose, put it in home-made sausage. The plant was even called sausage herb, as in many countries it is the main seasoning in sausages. Marjoram perfectly complements potato soups, fried bird, liver, mushroom and lamb dishes. Marjoram is grown in seedlings, sowing seeds in April. The first shoots appear only after three weeks. In late May, seedlings are transplanted into the open ground, when there is no threat of frost. Plants are harvested at the beginning of the mass flowering period. The stems with inflorescences are cut at a height of about five centimeters above ground level and dried in a dark, but ventilated place.
Tarragon, or tarragon
Tarragon (tarragon) is a cold-resistant plant, growing in the form of a bush up to one meter high with a large number of shoots. If the plant is not transplanted, then it is able to grow for five to seven years. Culture does not like too damp places.
All the spicy plants we have cited are very sun-loving and prefer to grow in open areas. But they are dried only in the shade in a cool place, since at a temperature of more than 35 degrees aromatic substances evaporate.
Cardamom
Cardamom is a spicy plant in the ginger family, which is nothing more than grass. A culture grows in the wild in South India (in moist forests). Major and Indian cardamom are especially valued on the global spice markets. The fruits of the plant look like a box. Gather them a little immature, and then dried in the sun. To flavor the confectionery and flour products, the boxes are ground. Green fruits have a stronger aroma than white.
Black cardamom
Black cardamom is a completely different spice. Fruits (capsules) are collected from the atotite tree belonging to the ginger family. Several varieties of such trees grow in southern China and in the mountainous regions of China. Boxes of plants are usually sold in their entirety; they have a pleasant aroma with a subtle shade of camphor and haze.
Also known is black cardamom from Madagascar, Cameroon and Somalia. The French put this spice in liquors (Chartreuse, Curacao), the Germans add it to the mixture for the preparation of the famous Nuremberg gingerbread. It was from the Germans that the tradition came to us to add cardamom to Easter cakes.
Spice is most popular in the East. For example, in India, cardamom is added to all dishes and even drinks.
Turmeric
Turmeric is a bright yellow spice. Get it from the rhizomes of plants of the ginger family. The spice has a slightly burning bitter, but pleasant taste. Turmeric is incredibly popular in England, India, Central Asia, China, and Azerbaijan. Spice is often used instead of expensive saffron, although their properties are still different. Dishes prepared with turmeric are stored longer. Spice is used for cooking beef, lamb and chicken.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is an evergreen tree whose height reaches 15 meters. To get the famous spice, it is not fruits and leaves that are harvested; everything is much more complicated. A two-year-old tree is cut down and a stump is left, from which young shoots appear next year. As soon as they reach a meter height, they are cut off and the bark removed from them. Moreover, they take only the inner layer. Drying, thin strips are twisted into a tube. As such, cinnamon goes on sale.
Cinnamon, as a spice, can be divided into Ceylon (noble) and Chinese (cassia). The first is considered more expensive and valuable, since it is made only from the inner layer. But cassia is made from the whole bark, and therefore its taste is more burning and harsh. In our stores they sell cassia, as a more affordable and cheaper option. Although it is worth noting that noble cinnamon wins much both in chemical composition and in taste.
