Fennel – a strong, reaching 2 m in height biennial or perennial plant umbrella. Originates from southern Europe, from the Mediterranean Sea area and Asia Minor. The ancient Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Chinese have valued him as a spice and medicine. In Central Europe it was in the Middle Ages.

Description.
Fennel leaves pinnately dissected into multiple line segments. Fragrant yellow flowers clustered in umbels. Fennel is very similar to caraway meadow. Fruit – aromatic dvusemyanki, oblong, oval, up to 8 mm.

Growing up.
Currently, fennel is cultivated by direct seeding in gardens and in the field, not only in Central Europe and the Mediterranean region, but also in North and South America, China, eastern India and the USSR. Fennel planted in fertile, well-treated, not too moist soils with sufficient limestone, warm and bright areas. In Slovakia and Moravia, it is cultivated for fruit (Fructus foeniculi). Gather the mature umbrellas, which, after drying at 35 ° C threshed.

The chemical composition.
Fruits contain 2-6% essential oil (Oleum foeniculi aetherum), 9-12% fatty oil, proteins, sugars, etc. The characteristic odor of anethole and fenchone called.

The action.
Fennel has an expectorant and disinfectant action. Used for flatulence and to improve the production of milk in nursing mothers. In folk medicine fennel is used as a tea decoction with abdominal pain, cough and insomnia.

Application.
Fennel has a spicy, sweet aroma, reminiscent of the smell of anise. Its taste is sweet and slightly spicy. The fruits are used to make flavored water, flavored alcohol syrups and medicinal teas. By distillation of them are fragrant essential oil.
In a spice used in the manufacture of liquors, confectionery, mainly cookies, pies and puddings. By law, popular in the cooking of fish, especially carp, mayonnaise, soups, sauces, and on a smaller scale and compotes. It gives a nice flavor sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and cold dishes. New shoots and leaves, and immature umbels make more subtle flavor marinades to salads, they are used in canning cucumbers, vegetables and sauerkraut.

Cumin – biennial umbrella plant height of 0.3-1.0 m. We grow wild in the meadows, and boundaries, are grown in gardens and as a field crop. Cumin was used as far back as the Neolithic era. Distributed almost all over Europe. Has been known since the Middle Ages.

Description.
Cumin has a naked stepel, furrowed and branched. Leaves vaginal, double or triple, pinnately. Their leaves are pinnately dissected into linear lobes. Flowers are clustered in an umbrella. It flowers in May and June. Fruit – dvusemyanki.

Growing up.
Caraway is sown in rows with aisles of approximately 0.30 m in cover crops. After collecting the cover crop weed cumin. In the autumn pripahivayut rows. Seeds harvested at the stage when they begin to acquire brown. Plants mowed, knit in snopiki and put in the dryer. Dried snopiki threshed, and then finally dried fruit completely. The largest manufacturers and suppliers of cumin include: Holland, Egypt, CIS, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Morocco, Canada and CHNR.

The chemical composition.
The fruits of caraway seeds contain 3-7% essential oil (Oleum carvi aetherum), the main component of which is carvone, 10-20% fatty oil, proteins, resinous substances, sugar, etc. The major components of essential oils – carvone and limonene.

The action.
In the pharmaceutical industry, cumin is used to make herbal medicines against flatulence, stimulating milk production and strengthen the stomach. In folk medicine, cumin is used in spasms of the digestive organs and headache. As a spice it, along with a characteristic taste, easy digestion of fat and heavy meals.

Application.
Cumin has a strong spicy and even pungent, spicy scent. Often part of the spice mixture. Used, in whole or ground. Ground cumin is used for dishes that are not subject to heat treatment – salads, pates, cheeses, etc. In general the form of cumin is used for making various products from the test, added in red beets, fresh and sauerkraut, in potatoes, soups, salads, cheeses, sausages, all types of fatty meat, cheese in – fish, especially cooked to crayfish and carrots, mushrooms in soups and cream soup, a soup with caraway seeds, soup and stew in Irish. No cumin and garlic cooking mutton is unthinkable. Requires no special explanation, and the fact that many would have lost the taste of bread, if he was not black and cumin.

Black pepper is the best known and most frequently used spices. Homeland him – India. It is described more in Sanskrit.

Description.
Black pepper is a climbing shrub reaching a height of 15 m. The leaves have a length of 80-100 mm, reaching even the size of his hands. After flowering grow round fruit (Fructus piped nigri), at first green, then they get a yellow or red. The length of 80-140 mm ears, they contain 20-30 kostyanok.

Growing up.
Black pepper is grown in Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Brazil. Plant growth is limited height of 5 m. It grows on high bars, similar to drunkenness. Begins to bear fruit after three years. Landings can be used for 15-20 years. Harvest is when the fruits begin to take on the color red, and dried in the sun. In the process of drying fruit turn black. White pepper is produced from fully ripe fruit, which are collected only when their color is yellow-red or red and they easily fall off. After drying, turn brown. After removing the outer shell are white pepper, which has more delicate taste and strong aroma of noble and valued more. If the harvest is in a period when the fruits are green, you get the green pepper. Its use is gradually increasing. However, its production requires special handling. Good spice should be not only acute but also fragrant, which is especially highlighted in green peppers.

The chemical composition.
The severity of pepper depends on piperine. In addition, it contains pirolin, havitsin, sugars, enzymes, essential oils and starch. It should be borne in mind that the essential oils evaporate under improper storage.

The action.
Black pepper helps digestion. The Romans used it in large quantities. But this can not be recommended. However, in the quantities in which it is used in our kitchen, this is not a health hazard. Application. Pepper is used for soups, gravies, sauces, vegetable salads, marinades, and cooking all kinds of meat, including game, savoy cabbage, beans, peas, lentils, sauerkraut, goulash, egg, cheese, tomatoes, fish, canned vegetables and for a large number of other dishes that are prepared in our kitchen. Without the black pepper does not do home slaughter pigs, making sausages and a range of meat products.

Peppers, an annual herbaceous plant height 0,20-0,60 m homeland – Mexico. In the 16th century, it caught on in Europe and now cultivated worldwide.

Description.
Stem erect, leaves petiolate, oblong-ovate, pointed, entire. Leaf color from green to dark green. Flowers are white, yellow, white or purple, on long stalks, drooping. It flowers from June to September. Fruit – a relatively large, hollow, oblong or globose berry length of 0.10-0.20 m and a width of 70-80 mm.

Growing up.
The most famous modern producers of pepper are Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Spain and California. Grown from seedlings. In an open pound is planted in mid-May, because they do not tolerate frost.

Today we know many kinds of peppers, among them dlinnoplodnye, with large fleshy fruit, a variety of small-fruited, some length of 10 mm, small round, for example, the so-called. cherry peppers (cultivated cultivar ‘Coral’), various kinds of peppers, from the so-called. fruit only to the burning.

The chemical composition.
The main component is an alkaloid capsaicin pepper, giving him a burning taste, and it contains 10-15% fatty oils and carotenoids kapsorubin, capsanthin and carotenes. Much pepper in vitamin C, vitamin A and B2, as well as sugars, fats and fatty oils in the seeds.

The action.
Pepper has a reinforcing effect, improves digestion, increases appetite and skin irritant.

Application.
Pepper has a spicy aroma and weak depending on the kind of spicy flavor to even the most acute and burning taste. In the pharmaceutical industry is used for the manufacture of drugs – tinctures, plasters and extracts for the isolation of the alkaloid. The kitchen uses fresh vegetables as sweet and hot peppers as a spice and a dry form of the hammer. Pepper used in soups, especially tomato, fish, goulash, almost all kinds of meat, fish, sauces, beans, cabbage and rice. It is indispensable in the manufacture of many types of sausages and meat products. Pepper added to taste in a variety of salads and appetizers. Fresh pepper is used in salads mixed with other vegetables. Vegetable pepper served with meat, the bread, cheese and to the various in different combinations. He preserved with various vegetables on their own. Pepper can not pour in boiling oil or fat, because it loses color, turning black and gorknet.

Bay leaf – it leaves laurel, an evergreen subtropical kusgarniga. Cultivated in warm countries with maritime climate, now mainly in Italy, Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia, CIS, France, Spain, Portugal and Guatemala. Leaves and twigs of laurel has long been a symbol of victory, glory and duty. Of those who were decorated with wreaths entwined heads of statues of gods, and the winners of wars, and sports tournaments, poets, scientists, prophets, singers and politicians. Its use and cultivation expanded the ancient Greeks and Romans, who etnosklis him with great reverence.

Description.
Leaves of laurel is relatively tough, leathery, oblong, lanceolate to oval of shape. Their length is 10-50 mm, width – 20-50 mm. Leaf margins slightly elevated, undulating. The upper side of leaves darker bottom. Bay leaf – a dioecious plant, blooms in March-April, the flowers are white, yellow and even blue-red.

Growing up.
Laurel requires fertile, well-treated soil, water and sun of prosperity. It is grown in greenhouses and well izgesten as an ornamental shrub. You can grow it, and at home. Collection of leaves produced after two years in autumn, dried them in the shadows, spilling a thin layer. Properly dried leaves should be intact, firm and pale green in color, without seeovatogo plaque.

The chemical composition.
Bay leaf contains essential oils, tannins and bitterness, which gives it the typical taste.

The action.
Bay leaf is the appetite and digestion sodegstvueg.

Application.
Bay leaf has slaboaromatnym, spicy smell and bitter taste. Its advantage is that even with prolonged and improper storage, he does not lose to a large extent its quality. Keep it should be in closed containers.
In a spice used leaf or powder bliss. Bay leaf used in almost the entire scale of acidic foods in konservirovagii oveschey, cooking game and different kinds of grilled meat. Particularly well with pickled cucumbers, beets, beans and cabbage. You can add it to the mushrooms. Of the other dishes add it mainly for cooking venison with sour cream, when cooking fish, cooking the sauce from the juice left over from the roast meat, potato soup and cooking crabs, crabs, herring, and pickled fish. Bay leaf adds a nice flavor jellies, goulash, sauces. However, it should not add more than one leaf for 4 people, it is better to use it in smaller quantities. Bay leaf adds a sweet taste to all savory dishes.