Somewhat (un)shockingly, it has
been over 6 months since I last wrote anything on here. I’m not going to
apologise. I believe that anyone who reads this is already so accustomed to my
guilt-ridden introductions that they will know how I feel about this. And if
they are still reading my posts, then I will hazard a guess that they forgive
me for it and just want me to get on with it.
As I approach the end of the
first year of my DPhil (gulp-how did that happen?), I have been afforded a rare
and unusual pleasure- a day off. But as we all know, a day off does not really
mean a day off. It means catching up on all of the admin that you’ve been
ignoring, planning for the year ahead and sorting things around the house that
really should have been done by now (we moved in 2 months ago). However, in
amongst all of this, I have managed to find the time to do four pleasant
things:
1) Go
for a walk in the park. It’s a beautiful, crisp Autumn day and staying inside
would have been a sin.
2) Catch
up with a lovely friend via a Skype chat.
3) Plant
some herbs to grow in our (ahem) conservatory.
4) Write
that blog post I’ve been meaning to write for ages.
The observant amongst you may
notice something food related in that list and hence not be surprised when I
reveal that the subject of this post is herbs. Or something like that. We’ll
see how we go.
I love to use herbs in my
cooking. I recently heard the term “flavour magpie” and think that it very
accurately describes my style of cooking. If I haven’t thrown some herbs or
spices into a pot somewhere during the preparation of a meal, then I’m probably
cooking outdoors somewhere with only a trangia stove and instant mashed potato
for company and inspiration. I’m also likely to be desperately unhappy and
fantasising about what I COULD be eating if I had my spice rack. But despite
this, I’ve never really considered what makes herbs TASTE so good. I mean, what
makes basil that little bit tinny? Why is rosemary woody and how
does thyme get that richness? Parsley’s
grassy notes, and the bitterness of sage-they must come from somewhere. And
that somewhere must be a compound. Chemistry will have the answer, surely!
Flavour compounds are something
that I knew about in that vague, loose, “I can BS about this for a bit but
don’t really know what I’m talking about” kind of way. There are meant to be
loads of them in wine, coffee and chocolate, which is why there are
connoisseurs of those things, wine tasting events and aromatic blends sold for
extortionate prices in delis. Not that I have a problem with that. In fact, I
have recently discovered wine-tasting as a new and exciting hobby, so may well
assault you with a post on that soon. I was also vaguely aware that esters are
flavour compounds present in fruits like raspberries and pears, and give pear
drops that nail-polish remover-esque pong. These flavour compounds are
volatile, i.e. have a low boiling point, so they evaporate from food at room
temperature, making them easily detectable by the olfactory system in the nose.
This is why when you have a cold things don’t taste as good, because the
compounds can’t reach your olfactory system as well due to your blocked nose.
The sum total of my existing knowledge clearly wasn’t going to make a blog
post. Cue a trip to my favourite search engine (no names, but they have an
excellent doodle today).
It turns out that a lot of people
study this kind of thing. I very nearly incorporated a job search in to my day
to see if I can work for these marvellous people and spend my life working out
why basil tastes like basil. Then I realised that if I did that and tried to
tell people about it at grown-up dinner parties, they would think I was some
sort of hippy who’d thought up my research question whilst stoned and eating
cold lasagne. Plus people have already done that with EVERY TYPE OF BASIL there
is and made a table of it. So it’s back to the heart disease. I’ll just have
satisfy myself with telling you all what all those other people found out. So
here goes.
But before I nominate terpenes as
my favourite class of compounds (not that I would-that would be a bit much,
wouldn’t it?), let’s have a look at which other compounds are responsible for
yumminess. Thyme is my favourite herb- I feel like that’s an acceptable
favourite to have- and yet nowhere can I see a terpene responsible for its
flavour. That’s because the aroma compound in thyme is an aromatic compound
named, rather imaginatively, thymol. But wait a minute! This is a cleverly both
an aromatic compound AND a monoterpene phenolic compound. So terpenes do
actually win the title of my favourite compounds ever. Lucky them. Thymol turns
out to be closely related to apiole, which is a major aroma compound of
parsley, estragole, found in tarragon, and the startlingly similar anethole,
which is a component of anise and sweet basil. Aromatics are also found in
almonds, cloves, cinnamon and vanilla, but as they aren’t herbs, they aren’t
allowed more than a passing mention here.
There’s a lot more I could go
into regarding flavour compounds and the like, but I’ve already rambled on
enough for now, so will subject you to all that another day. Right now, as a
reward for getting to the end of this with your sanity intact, I’d say that it
is THYME for a nice cup of (herbal) tea. (That definitely deserves an eye
roll.) Over and out.