Coriander

  • CorianderNative to the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, the plant is widely cultivated in many places worldwide for its culinary uses. Its dry fruits and seeds, which are also known as coriander, are used to flavour many foods, particularly sausages, curries, Scandinavian pastries, liqueurs, and confectionery, such as English comfits. Its delicate young leaves, known as cilantro, are widely used in Latin American, Indian, and Chinese dishes.
  • The plant produces a slender hollow stem 30 to 60 mm (1 to 2.5 inches) high with fragrant bipinnate leaves. The small flowers are pink or whitish and are borne in umbel clusters.

Coriander Export

Coriander grows wild over a wide area of Western Asia and Southern Europe, prompting the comment: “It is hard to define exactly where this plant is wild and where it only recently established itself.” Recent works suggested that wild coriander in Israel and Portugal might be an ancestor of cultivated coriander. They have low germination rates and a small vegetative appearance. Israeli coriander has an extremely hard fruit coat.

Records of the use of coriander date to 5000 BCE. The Romans used it to flavour bread. It was once used as an aromatic and carminative, but its only modern use in medicine is to mask unpleasant tastes and odours of drugs.

The leaves are variously referred to as coriander leaves, fresh coriander, Chinese parsley, or (in the US and commercially in Canada) cilantro. The fresh leaves are an ingredient in many foods, such as chutneys and salads, salsa, guacamole, and as a widely used garnish for soup, fish, and meat. As heat diminishes their flavour, coriander leaves are often used raw or added to the dish immediately before serving. In Indian and Central Asian recipes, coriander leaves are used in large amounts and cooked until the flavour diminishes. The leaves spoil quickly when removed from the plant and lose their aroma when dried or frozen.