Spices VII

Watercress

Definitions

1. Cress: Any plant of the Mustard family, especially watercress.
2. Watercress: A cress of the mustard family usually found in clear Running Streams.
3. Tart: Sour Watercress is one of the oldest plants eaten by humans. Related to Garden cress, Mustard, Radish, and Wasabi.

This plant makes the grade as Herbs/Spices due to the distinctive sharp but pleasant taste that is also somewhat tart.

Uses

Its uses are mostly in the Salads arena. But its tartness also lends flavoring to Seafood such as Crab salad and another would be a bed of watercress with Grilled Salmon or fresh Tuna steak laid on top.

There is also this interesting soup: Watercress pureed in a blender with potatoes and onion then simmered in a pot of Chicken or Beef Broth with a little milk added.

This herb is high in Vitamins and Minerals and is a good anti-oxidant.

Wintergreen

My first thought about this herb was to skip it because it has so little Culinary use. But since my primary intention in creating this blog was to inform, I realized that I had mistakenly left out a definition that is common to several of the herbs that I've already presented - I will remedy that now.

Definitions

1. Wintergreen: A plant or tree that stays green all year round; Especially in winter.
2. The leaves and berries of the wintergreen plant.

Note:  The name Wintergreen was at one time used to include all such plants/trees that stayed green in winter. But that was centuries ago. As time went on, Wintergreen by itself was found to have so many uses it became necessary to give a more generic name to trees and plants that had that property and that was how and when "Evergreen" came into use and still is.

Culinary Uses

The primary usage for Wintergreen is to flavor Chewing Gum; Mint Candies and Tea.

The Wintergreen tea has been used by Native American Tribes for probably centuries, but not as a food source but as an agent of relief from aches and pains; headaches and various kinds of sore throat.

The reason this tea worked so well is due to the properties within the Wintergreen plant; It contains Salicylic Acid, a component of what we know as Aspirin.

The berries of the plant are used, through the water distillation process, to obtain wintergreen oil. The oil uses are mainly topical (applied to the skin instead of taking it orally, ie, by mouth); Some, but not all of the applications are: Arthritis, obesity, poor circulation, and hypertension.

It also flavors toothpaste and mouth wash; Listerine for example; Chewing gum as mentioned above and in soft drinks.

Note: The oil is also toxic if overdose occurs; One ounce of oil is equal to 170 aspirin tablets. Enough to put a hurt on one.

Waterpepper


Definitions

1. A plant of the polygonaceae family; 
• From Greek: poly--many and goni--joint.
2. Node: The stem which has one or several joints that are swollen and have leaves growing from these nodes.

Uses

This plant, although it is native to North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand is primarily used by the Japanese. They cultivate the plant and its leaves to be used as a vegetable and young, red sprouts are served up with sashimi ( raw meat or fish sliced thin).

They also chop the leaves very fine, add vinegar and a bit of cooked rice. This sauce is then used to flavor freshwater fish dishes.


Wormwood

Definitions

1. From the Daisy family and related to sagebrush. 
2. Spirits: Distilled Alcohol without added sugar.

Uses

Liquor mainly, especially Absinthe and as a flavoring in some spirits. In Absinthe, the alcohol content is anywhere from 90 to 150 proof and no sugar added. It comes out a pastel green color and is commonly known as "The Green Fairy".

Also, as noted in the Sassafras Post, and because of the banning of the Sassafras root in the making of Root Beer, Wintergreen combined with Black Birch Bark is the current substitute flavoring.
During the middle ages Wormwood was used to add spice to Mead which is fermented honey and water.

Wrap up

I put aside these next three spices/herbs because they are the three most expensive and definitely the king of spices.

Marjoram

There is nothing more to add about Marjoram since I wrote about it an earlier post. I did not mention at that time that it is the third most expensive of spices and herbs.




Vanilla


Vanilla is of the Orchid family and in this case the Mexican species. It is the second most expensive due to the fact that it so labor intensive; the orchid it comes from shares a symbiotic relationship with It's pollinator, the Mexican Bee. In other words, one cannot survive without the other. That was in the late 1500's.

This fact was made clear when the Spanish tried taking it to Europe and thought that just any old bee would do, but they were wrong and the cultivation of the orchid was a failure.

But, in the 1800's on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean a 12 year old slave boy discovered a way to hand pollinate the flower and that fact added so much labor to the cultivation process that the price of vanilla went up and up.

It is the most popular of all the spices and is found in every kitchen, commercial or home.

Saffron

Definitions 

1. Crocus sativas: A flowering plant in the family of Iris.
2. Corm: an enlarged, fleshy, bulbous base of a stem, as in the Crocus.
3. Carpel: The female part of a flower that produces seeds and fruit.
4. Stigma, plural- Stigmata: The receptive tip of a carpel.

Saffron 

1. A crocus having purple flowers.
2. The orange colored spice which are the dried stigmata of the Saffron Crocus. 
• Each flower produces 3 stigmata; each about an inch to 3 inches long. Each plant produces up to 4 flowers.

The Saffron plant is no longer found in the wild. It has been known and used for at least 2700 years.
The reason it is no longer found in the wild is probably due to selective breeding of the flower to grow longer stigma, since that is the only culinary use, ie, dried stigmata.

Besides use of the honey sweet, but hay like flavor, of the ground stigmata it is also used as a clothing dye.

One of the more common use is in the coloring of foods giving a luminous yellow orange color.

It is used in Italian Risotto, in Spanish Paella (pie ay a) and the Bouillabaisse of France. Used also to make the prized Golden Ham from Tuscany.

The Saffron spice is by far the most expensive of all herbs and spices due to the fact that there is only the amount of stigmata per flower as noted above.

Thus, one pound of stigmata requires the harvesting of between 50,000 and 75,000 flowers.
The cost of that pound can be as much as $5000.00 dollars.

I hope you have enjoyed and have become more informed about that spice rack. I know I have enjoyed the research and writing each of the posts.

Dad