48 Fun Facts About Herb

In culinary terms, herbs come from which part of a plant?

Culinary herbs are the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant, while spices come from seeds, bark, roots and fruits; coriander supplies both.

The word 'herb' ultimately derives from a Latin word meaning what?

Grass: Latin herba meant grass, and English left the h silent until the 19th century, so the h-less American 'erb' is the older sound.

Which four herbs make up the classic fines herbes of French cooking?

Parsley, chives, tarragon, chervil: Escoffier called it an absolute error to pass off an omelette flavoured with parsley alone as 'aux fines herbes'.

What is a bouquet garni?

Herbs tied in a bundle and fished out before serving: the sturdy herbs used give up their flavour through long simmering, blending into the stock or stew.

Basil, mint, oregano, thyme, sage and rosemary all belong to which plant family?

Lamiaceae, the mint family, is also called Labiatae, 'the lipped ones', because its flowers split into an upper and a lower lip.

The name basil comes from a Greek phrase meaning what kind of plant?

Royal or kingly: the herb was possibly so named because it was believed to have been used in making royal perfumes.

Pesto, the Italian basil sauce, originated in which city?

Genoa: pesto takes its name from pestare, 'to pound', because the basil and garlic are crushed in a mortar.

Tulsi, the plant also called holy basil, is sacred in which religion?

Hinduism: devotees worship tulsi as a goddess, and many Hindu homes keep a living plant in the courtyard.

In American English, what name is used for the leaves of the coriander plant?

Cilantro is simply Spanish for coriander, and because heat dulls the leaves' flavour, cooks usually add them raw or just before serving.

Gene variants near an olfactory receptor make coriander leaves taste like what to some people?

Soap: a 2012 study tied the soapy taste to a variant among smell-receptor genes, including OR6A2, which detects aldehydes in the leaves.

Which bitter herb gives the spirit absinthe its name?

Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, named absinthe, and its German name, Wermut, also gave vermouth its name.

On molecular evidence, rosemary was reclassified into which genus?

Salvia took in rosemary after DNA showed Rosmarinus had sat inside that genus all along, so keeping it separate would have split Salvia.

Rosemary's name comes from Latin words meaning what?

Dew of the sea: Latin ros marinus, which English probably bent toward 'rose' and 'Mary', so it now looks like 'rose of Mary'.

Sprigs of rosemary are traditionally worn on which national day?

Anzac Day: rosemary has long been an emblem of remembrance, and Ophelia says 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance' in Hamlet.

What are the two main kinds of leaf parsley?

Curly and flat: long before parsley became a garnish, the ancient Greeks wove it into wreaths for tombs.

Which Lebanese dish is made mostly of finely chopped parsley?

Tabbouleh is mostly parsley in the Levant, but many Western versions flip the balance and use more bulgur than parsley.

Hamburg parsley is grown mainly for which part of the plant?

Its root: Philip Miller wrote that when he brought the seed from Holland in 1727, English kitchen gardeners refused to try it.

The Greek word that gave us 'parsley' literally means what?

Rock celery: the Greeks probably gave it that name because it was often found growing on rocky hillsides.

Peppermint is a natural hybrid of spearmint and which other species?

Water mint crossed with spearmint gives peppermint, a hybrid that rarely sets seed, so it spreads by creeping stems instead.

In Greek myth, the nymph Minthe was turned into a mint plant after being loved by which god?

Minthe, a nymph of the underworld river Cocytus, was loved by Hades; a jealous Persephone (or Demeter) transformed her into the mint plant.

Which compound gives peppermint its cooling aroma and flavour?

Menthol activates the cold-sensing TRPM8 receptors in the mouth, which is why peppermint feels cold without being cold.

Oregano became popular in the US after soldiers returned from which war with a taste for the "pizza herb"?

World War II: GIs are said to have brought home the taste, and oregano's rise then went hand in hand with pizza's spread across America.

One popular etymology says the name oregano comes from Greek words meaning what?

Joy of the mountain is the popular reading of Greek oros and ganos, but the word's origin is disputed and it may be a borrowing.

Which herb seasons gravlax, the Nordic cured salmon?

Dill: gravlax takes its name from a word for burying, because the salmon was originally cured by burying it in the ground.

Dill is native to which regions?

Dill is native to North Africa and the Middle East, from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula, though Scandinavian and Russian cooking, gravlax included, made it their own.

The genus name of culinary sage comes from a Latin word meaning what?

To be healthy: sage's Latin name was given for the healing powers once credited to the herb, used for sore gums and aching joints.

Which herb flavours the classic English 'and onion' stuffing served with roast turkey?

Sage and onion stuffing is the classic, and English folklore said sage grew best in gardens where the wife ruled the house.

Culinary bay leaves most commonly come from which tree?

The bay laurel's leaves made the laurel wreaths worn as marks of honour in antiquity, the origin of the word 'laureate'.

The Indian bay leaf, tej patta, comes from a close relative of which spice?

Cinnamon: tej patta is thought to have supplied malabathrum, the leaves Romans used in perfumed oils and in cooking.

Tarragon is the main flavouring of which classic French sauce?

Bearnaise is named after Béarn, Henri IV's birthplace, but it is believed to have been first served near Paris, at a restaurant named after that king.

Tarragon flavours a popular carbonated soft drink, Tarkhuna, that originated in which country?

Georgia: Mitrofan Lagidze began mixing syrups into soda water in Kutaisi in 1887, and his drinks were later sold across the Soviet Union.

Unlike most kitchen herbs, tarragon belongs to which plant family, alongside daisies and sunflowers?

Asteraceae, the daisy family, holds tarragon; the Russian kind grows easily from seed but has little flavour, so cooks want French tarragon.

Which herb, sometimes called French parsley, has a faint taste of aniseed?

Chervil is nearly always used fresh, and because its delicate fragrance fades in long cooking, it goes in at the very end.

Lemongrass is botanically what kind of plant?

A true grass: lemongrass smells of lemon because its oil is mostly citral, a compound with a strong lemon scent.

Which herb have the Guaraní people of South America long used as a sweetener?

Stevia: its leaves hold sweet glycosides, which are now extracted to make zero-calorie sweeteners sold around the world.

The genus name Lavandula is thought to come from a Latin verb meaning what?

To wash is the traditional reading, from the plant's use in baths, but no ancient writer records that use, and some dictionaries prefer lividus, 'bluish'.

Which Levantine seasoning shares its Arabic name with local thyme and oregano plants?

Za'atar: in Lebanese folk tradition, children are urged to eat it at breakfast before school, in the belief that it sharpens the mind.

Which ingredient appears in North American herbes de Provence but is unusual in French blends?

Lavender is typical of North American blends, while the named 'Provence' mix itself was a 20th-century creation of spice firms such as Ducros.

In Exodus, which herb do the Israelites use to daub lamb's blood on their doorposts?

Hyssop, though researchers suggest the Bible's plant was not today's hyssop but another herb, perhaps Syrian oregano.

Sorrel's sharp, lemony taste comes mainly from which acid?

Oxalic acid takes its name from sorrel: Latin oxalis, and chemists first isolated the acid from sorrel plants.

Botanically, a herbaceous plant is one with which characteristic?

It has no persistent woody stem, so by the botanical definition woody rosemary and bay are kitchen herbs but not true herbs.

Which fines herbe has pale purple edible flowers and a species name meaning 'rush-leek'?

Chives, Allium schoenoprasum ('rush-leek'), bear pale purple edible flowers and belong to the amaryllis family with onions and garlic.

The Greek name of which herb gives the battlefield of Marathon its name?

Fennel: Marathon meant 'fennel field', so every marathon race is ultimately named after the herb.

Which emperor required fennel to be grown on all imperial farms?

Charlemagne's Capitulare de villis (c. 800) listed fennel among the plants to be grown on imperial estates; Greeks and Romans used it as food, medicine and insect repellent.

Marjoram was known to the Romans as the herb of what?

Happiness: marjoram's name only looks as if it came from Latin maior, 'greater'; that word merely reshaped an older plant name.

Lovage is the sole species of which genus?

Levisticum gave lovage its name, and the 'love' in it is folk etymology: the root is Latin ligusticum, 'Ligurian'.

The genus name of lemon balm, Melissa, comes from the Greek word for what?

Honey bee is what melissa means in Greek, and the plant is commonly grown to attract bees.

Sweet woodruff, used to flavour German May wine, owes its scent to which compound?

Coumarin forms as sweet woodruff wilts, which is why the herb's hay-like scent grows stronger once it is picked and dried.