What is an herb?
A: In general use, herbs are a group of plants, excluding
vegetables and
other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties
used for flavoring and garnishing
food, for medicinal purposes, or for
fragrances.
Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from what?
A: spices.
Herbs generally refers to what?
A: The leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried).
Spices are usually dried and produced from other parts
of the plant, including what?
A: Seeds, bark, roots and fruits.
General usage of the term "herb" differs between
culinary herbs and what?
A: Medicinal herbs.
In medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant
might be considered as "herbs", including what?
A: Leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), resin
and pericarp.
In botany, the noun "herb" refers to what?
A: A "plant that does not produce a woody stem", and the adjective
"herbaceous" means "herb-like", referring to parts of the plant that are
green and soft in texture".
In botany, the term herb refers to a herbaceous plant,
defined how?
A: As a small, seed-bearing plant without a woody stem in which all aerial
parts (i.e. above ground) die back to the ground at the end of each growing
season.
Usually, the term refers to what?
A: Perennials, although herbaceous plants can also be annuals, or biennials.
Some of the most commonly described herbs such as sage,
rosemary and lavender would be excluded from the botanical definition of a
herb as they do not what?
A: Die down each year, and they possess woody stems.
Herbalism can utilize not just stems and leaves but
also what?
A: Fruit, roots, bark and gums.
Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus divided the
plant world into what?
A: Trees, shrubs, and herbs.
Parsley and sage were often used together in medieval
cookery, for example in what?
A: Chicken broth, which had developed a reputation as a therapeutic food by
the 14th century.
One of the most common sauces of the age, green sauce,
was made with what?
A: Parsley and often sage as well.
In a 14th-century recipe recorded in Latin "for lords,
for settling their temperament and whetting their appetite" green sauce is
served with what?
A: A dish of cheese and whole egg yolks boiled in watered down
wine with
herbs and spices.
How are perennial herbs usually reproduced?
A: By stem cuttings, either softwood cuttings of immature growth, or
hardwood cuttings where the bark has been scraped to expose the cambium
layer.
A cutting will usually be approximately how long?
A: 3 to 4 inches in length.
Plant roots can grow from what?
A: The stems.
How are culinary herbs distinguished from vegetables?
A: Like spices, they are used in small amounts and provide flavor rather
than substance to food.
Herbs can be perennials such as thyme, sage or
lavender, biennials such as parsley, or annuals like what?
A: Basil.
Some plants are used as both herbs and spices, such as
what?
A: Dill weed and dill seed or coriander leaves and seeds.
There are also some herbs, such as those in the mint
family, that are used for what?
A: Both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Some herbs can be infused in boiling water to make
what?
A: Herbal teas.
Herbal teas tend to be made from what?
A: Aromatic herbs.
They may not contain tannins or caffeine and are not
typically mixed with what?
A: Milk.
As far back as 5000 BCE, evidence that Sumerians used
herbs in medicine was inscribed on what?
A: Cuneiform.
In 162 CE, the physician Galen was known for concocting
complicated herbal remedies that contained up to how many ingredients?
A: 100.
