Kimchi is a fermented vegetable that has been pickled and processed, and is loved by the public because of its crisp, delicious taste and rich nutrition. The raw materials and processing methods of kimchi around the world have their own characteristics, and the kimchi produced is naturally different in flavor. For example, the mainland's kimchi, the selection of ingredients is wider, a variety of seasonal vegetables can be used as raw materials, its taste is salty, sour, crisp and tender, fresh and delicious; Another example is the well-known Korean kimchi, mostly with Chinese cabbage as the main raw material, the color is red and white, and the taste is sour, spicy and crisp; In Western countries such as Europe and the United States, people like to make kimchi with cucumbers, and their taste is sweet and crisp, which is very distraught and debilitating.
In addition to the different raw materials, a very important reason is that in the production process, their respective "soul" seasonings are added. For example, Chinese kimchi must add peppercorns and star anise, Korean kimchi is absolutely indispensable to red peppers, and the "soul" seasoning of Western-style kimchi is a plant seed called "dill".
Fennel (star anise)
Not fennel of wild fennel
When it comes to dill, I believe that the vast majority of people are unfamiliar with this name; However, if you mention its aliases, such as earth fennel, wild fennel, fennel, etc., people feel less unfamiliar, because fennel, a spice plant that is very commonly used in daily life, is still relatively familiar to the public. Since dill is also known as earth fennel and wild fennel, does it mean that it is wild fennel?
Before answering this question, let's first clarify another question: what is fennel? There are actually two kinds of fennel, and for the convenience of differentiation, we usually call them large fennel and fennel. Although both are commonly used spices, they are two completely different plants. Fennel is an evergreen tree of the genus Octagonal in the octagonal family, distributed in Fujian, Taiwan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places in mainland China, and is also distributed in Vietnam; Its fruit is a polymer fruit, composed of 8 or 9 fruit, which is mostly octagonal, so it is called "octagonal". Its fruit is often used as a flavoring spice. Cumin is a perennial herb of the genus Fennel in the family Umbellifera, distributed in northwestern China, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi and northeast China; Its fruit is a oblong oval double hanging fruit; Both the leaves and the fruit have a specific aroma. Not only can the fruit be used as a spice, but the young leaves can also be eaten as vegetables.
Looking at the protagonist of this article, dill, what kind of plant is it? Dill is an annual or biennial herb of the family Dill in the family Umbellifera, native to India and southern Europe, prefers warm and humid climate, is not tolerant to high temperatures, is not hardy, is slightly more drought tolerant, has low soil requirements, and is widely planted in the northeast of the mainland, Gansu, Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places.
Dill plants are relatively low, usually 60 to 90 cm tall, smooth and glabrous throughout, and have a strong fragrance. Its stem is single erect and cylindrical, with longitudinal slender stripes on the stem. Its leaves are bright green in color, the morphology changes greatly, and the basal leaves that grow in the lower part of the stem are broadly ovate, with three to four pinnate full lobes, with petioles, and a broad leaf sheath at the base of the petiole, and the edges are membranous; The upper part of the stem has smaller leaves, no petioles, only leaf sheaths, feathery, and the number of splits is reduced, and eventually the lobes are filamentous.
The flowers of dill are beautiful and chic, usually inflorescences of dichotomous branches in a compound umbel shape. The entire compound umbel-shaped inflorescence is 5 to 15 cm in diameter and consists of a small umbel-shaped inflorescence of 10 to 25 spokes, without total bracts; There are 15 to 25 small flowers on each small umbel-shaped inflorescence, the petals are yellow, the midrib is often brown, the small tongue is blunt, nearly rectangular, and the inner curve; The peduncle is short, straight and curved first, and the base is conical to cushion-shaped. The fruit is an ovate oval double hanging fruit, the seeds are brown when ripe, small round and flattened, the dorsal edges are thin but obviously protruding, the lateral edges are grayish white, the endosperm ventral surface is straight, and the taste is spicy and sweet, quite like fennel.
Cumin
Obviously, from the appearance and form of the plant, dill is a completely different plant from the star anise we are familiar with, and it is very easy to distinguish; However, compared with the different genera of cumin in the same family, both have bright green pinnate leaves, will open yellow umbrella-like inflorescences, will produce grain-like fine seeds, so whether from the plant type, leaves, flowers or fruits and other aspects, dill and fennel are very similar, very confusing. It can be seen that several aliases for dill should be derived from cumin, not fennel.
So, how exactly do you distinguish dill from cumin? It can usually be distinguished from the following three aspects.
First, look at the size of the plant. Dill plants are shorter, up to 1.2 meters tall, while cumin plants are relatively tall, reaching up to 1.5 meters or more.
Second, discern the shape of the seed. Dried dill seeds and cumin seeds have a more obvious difference in appearance: dill seeds not only have obvious main edges, but also two wing-like gray-white side edges, which at first glance look a bit like sunflower seeds; Fennel seeds, on the other hand, have no lateral edges, only five protruding but inconspicuous main edges, and look more like cumin or rice.
Finally, the difference in smell can also be considered. The smell of cumin is more intense and irritating, with a hint of sweetness in it; Although the dill taste is a little spicy, it is a bit similar to a mixture of cream and rue, which is milder and more intense than cumin, and smells more soothing.
The lucky grass in the eyes of the world
Dill is a very old vanilla that first appeared in India and spread to European countries along the Mediterranean coast thousands of years ago.
In ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago, people knew how to mix dill and coriander together to relieve pain. Ancient Greeks and romans also liked to use dill to calm their emotions, especially the ancient Romans, who regarded dill as a symbol of luck, believing that if you go out and encounter this plant, you will have good luck throughout the day. People at the time named this lucky grass Anethon, and the Latin scientific name of dill is Anethum graveolens L.
Dill's common English name is Dill, which evolved from Dylle or Dilla in Anglo-Saxon. By the Middle Ages, dill had become an extremely common aromatic plant and was highly regarded by people. At the time, it was believed that dill was not only a spice that could be used to help with sleep by warm compresses, but also a spell used to fight witchcraft, because dill had the magic power to lift witchcraft, and burning dill could dispel thunderclouds. The title also gradually evolved into Dill, which means calm wind and waves, coaxing babies to sleep, etc. There is an old word in Icelandic, Dilla, which also means to calm, eliminate, and soothe children. In the 8th century, Europe produced an emperor who was very obsessed with dill - the founder of the Charlemagne Empire, Charlemagne, who vigorously promoted the cultivation of dill throughout the country, so that this "lucky grass" in Europe was further expanded.
With the development of the times, whether in the East or the West, the understanding of dill has not only been limited to a single concept such as "lucky grass", but has given it more symbolic meaning. In China at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, in the poem "Planting Green Onions" by Qu Dajun, one of the "Three Great Masters of Lingnan", dill is a vivid portrayal of daily life, and he uses the verse of "inches of kindness and affection, mixed dill on the plate" to reproduce for us the scene of using various spices when making spring lettuce. Dill is also a symbol of the good life in the poem "Letters" by the american contemporary female poete Mary Oliver, in which she writes: "I read that vibrant melons / piled up by the door, baskets / filled with fennel, rosemary and dill." ”
Dill's most famous literary work is the short story "Dill Pickles" by The British-New Zealand writer Catherine Mansfield. The female writer, who enjoys the title of "master of the short story" in the history of modern literature in the world, tells in her own work the story of a couple reunited many years later, but they can no longer find the good feeling they had. In the novel, Catherine Mansfield uses symbolism to give multiple meanings to dill kimchi, through the complex taste of dill kimchi sour, sweet and bitter, implying the heroine's five-flavored and miscellaneous life changes, reflecting the bitterness of the heroine's life and the sourness of love; At the same time, it also shows that the heroine is only the condiment for the hero to adjust his life, which fully reflects the hero's emptiness and indifference to the past relationship. After a long time, the original sweet love has long become as sour as dill kimchi.
Spicy and soft seasoning
In the mainland, dill seems to be far less famous than peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise and other aromatic spices; But in European, American, Middle Eastern and Indian cuisines, dill is a popular and widely used seasoning.
Dill is not only rich in protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, dietary fiber and other nutrients, its stems and fruits are also rich in volatile oil components, so the whole plant can emit an aromatic smell similar to parsley, the taste is spicy and sweet, soft but not irritating, chewed carefully, and has a cool taste. Whether it is its fresh stems and leaves, or dried seeds, it is very suitable as a seasoning accessory, and is used in the preparation of kimchi pickles and stews, seafood, fish, eggs and other dishes. In addition, adding dill to soups and salads will also add some wonderful flavors and endless memories.
In European and American countries, dill kimchi is a very homely side dish, mostly brewed with cucumber and dill as the main accessory, seemingly sour taste hidden in the faint sweet and slightly spicy, making people appetite greatly. As the "soul" seasoning of Western-style kimchi, dill has an irreplaceable and important position in the minds of Europeans and Americans. When they make this kimchi dish, they usually soak the tender green cucumber with salt water first; Then, depending on your personal taste, add key spices such as dill leaves and garlic, and then pour in the pickle juice; Finally, the bottle is placed in a cool and dry place for about half a month, and the sour and appetizing dill kimchi is made. Keeping the finished dill pickles in the refrigerator and ready to use all year round is delicious and convenient.
As a spice seasoning, the special smell of dill not only neutralizes the fishy smell of seafood, especially fish, but also masks the smell of meat. Therefore, Western chefs always add dill to add fishy flavor when cooking fish dishes. When cooking meat, people in North Africa are also accustomed to adding a moderate amount of dill fruit.
Fresh dill leaves are fragrant, crisp and tender, perfect for raw food. A famous raw food dish in Northern Europe is dill salmon. This dish combines the rich and dense texture of salmon with the tender and soft fragrance of dill leaves, giving people a wonderful taste bud enjoyment, especially when the appetite is not good in the hot summer, and the salty and cold, fresh and refreshing dill salmon can make people feel appetizing. In Greece and some parts of Asia, dill is often eaten with rice as a tender seasonal vegetable, and is also a unique way to eat.
In addition, mixing dill into lettuce salad or sprinkling it in soup can also have a very significant flavor promotion effect. Dill and salad dressings are a perfect match, and chopping dill and mixing them in salad dressing is a common sauce preparation method in Western food. Sauces made with dill are suitable for pairing with fish with a relatively light taste, such as tuna, salmon and other deep-sea fish. It must be noted that once the fresh dill is hot, the aroma can not be maintained for a long time, if the soup is added prematurely when cooking the soup, its aroma will soon be lost, so people generally add dill to the food before the cooking is finished, in order to play a role in adding flavor and flavor.
Two incoming dill seeds
Due to the popularity of fennel, cumin and other similar spices, dill is not popular in the mainland, and at best it can only be regarded as a niche, personalized flavoring spice. In fact, the use of this spice in the mainland has a long history, at least more than 1600 years.
In the local chronicle "Record of Guangzhou" written by Pei Yuan of the Jin Dynasty, there is such a passage: "Born in the Persian kingdom. Horse parsley is black and heavy, and dill is brown and light, so this is different. Good to taste, eat more damage. That is, do not eat with Awei, take its taste also. This shows that as early as the Jin Dynasty, people already had a clear understanding of cumin (that is, horse parsley) and dill, two spices from Persia, and accurately grasped the sexual characteristics of both.
Obviously, dill and cumin were introduced to the mainland through the ancient Silk Road from Medieval Persia, and the Silk Road was opened as early as the Western Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, so dill was probably introduced to the mainland even earlier. This view was supported by the American Orientalist Torde Laufer. In the book "China and Iran", he speculated through etymological evidence that the word "dill" came from the Middle Persian language. This shows from another angle that dill was introduced to the mainland by land from Medieval Persia.
Interestingly, today, dill cultivation in the mainland is mainly concentrated in Gansu in the north, Sichuan in the southwest, and Guangdong and Guangxi in the south. If dill was introduced to the mainland from Persia via the Silk Road, it is more reasonable to spread and grow in the northwest region, why did it spread in the two Guangdong regions thousands of miles away? Therefore, there is another view that in the Tang Dynasty, dill was again introduced to the mainland from Indonesia and other Southeast Asian regions. The most direct basis for this is the content recorded by the Tang Dynasty chinese medicine scholar Chen Zangqi in the book "Materia Medica": "Dill gave birth to the Buddha's oath to the country, really like horse parsley seeds, spicy." The Buddha's oath kingdom mentioned in the book should refer to the kingdom of Sri Buddha, an ancient country located on the Indonesian island of Sumatra from the 7th to the 13th centuries.
In the Northern Song Dynasty pharmacologist Su Song's "Tujing Materia Medica", there is such a record of dill: "There are now lingnan and near the road. Seedlings are born in March and April, and the flowers are clustered in large snake beds, fragrant, and harvested in June and July. Nowadays, people use it more and have five tastes, and do not smell it for medicinal purposes. This shows that after dill was introduced to the south of the mainland from Southeast Asia, it was once widely popularized in the Lingnan region; However, at that time, people only used dill as a seasoning and did not recognize its medicinal value.
Indeed, since entering China, dill has been present as a seasoning. As for how this flavoring spice specifically plays a role in cooking, it is not described in detail in the literature before the Northern Song Dynasty. It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that a gourmet named Lin Hong appeared that he gave a specific record of the application of dill in the cooking of dishes in his book "Mountain Family Qing Offering". The "Mountain Family Qing Offering" contains 104 recipes, of which "Jade Irrigation Lung" and "Manshan Xiang" both use dill as a flavoring spice. The practice of "jade lung irrigation" is said to come from the imperial kitchen of the imperial palace, which can be described as a vegetarian version of the popular "sheep lung irrigation" at that time. The method of "full of mountain incense" comes from Lin Hong's friend Zheng Weibin, and its specific method is: in the last step of cooking vegetable soup, put dill powder, ginger, pepper powder, fennel powder and oil and sauce together, and then cover the pot lid and simmer, you can get the effect of fragrant floating all over the mountain.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the application of dill in gastronomic cooking reached an unprecedented height. In a well-known book at that time, "The Complete Collection of Essential Things to Use at Home", more than 400 food practices were included, of which 26 were made of dill, covering various methods such as sauce making, pickled pickles, cured meat, meat making, meat vegetarian fish, cold mix vegetables, etc., and even in the last compound spice recipe called "Heavenly Kitchen Ingredients", dill also appeared.
A good herb for stomach and tranquility
Dill is not only a seasoning with a unique flavor, but also a good medicinal material with special effects, and has a wide range of applications in the medical field. Westerners' understanding of the medicinal value of dill is obviously much earlier than my u1m+tbz7uaS75hJY8oLR4Q==. As early as around 1500 BC, the ancient Egyptians already knew how to use dill as a preservative; At the same time, they will also list dill as one of the prescriptions for pain medication. The ancient Greeks also recognized the calming effect of dill, so they liked to cover their eyes with dill leaves before going to sleep, in order to enable themselves to sleep peacefully.
As an exotic plant, although dill joined the ranks of Chinese medicinal materials relatively late, the understanding of its medicinal value in Chinese medicine is still relatively thorough. In the medicinal literature of the Five Dynasties period, "Rihuazi Zhujia Materia Medica", dill already has "healthy spleen, appetizing qi, warm intestines, killing fish and botulism." Hydrate dirty and strengthen bones and bones, cure kidney qi" record. Li Xun, a five-generation Materia Medica of the late Tang Dynasty whose ancestors were from Persia, also recorded in the "Sea Medicine Materia Medica" that the efficacy of dill was "the main diaphragm, consumption, warm stomach, good taste, and more food is not damaged". However, the ancient means of information dissemination and communication were relatively backward after all, so that in the Northern Song Dynasty, pharmacologists like Su Song still believed that people's understanding of the application value of dill at that time was limited to "multi-purpose and five flavors, not smelling medicinal uses" at that time.
In the Ming Dynasty, the famous medical scientist Li Shizhen made a more detailed and comprehensive record of the medicinal value of dill in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" by quoting a large number of predecessors, pointing out that the fruit of dill is spicy and warm, has the effect of appetizing and strengthening the spleen, dispersing cold and relieving pain, killing insects, regulating qi and stopping vomiting, can fix the pain of waist teeth, solve the poison of fish and flesh, and make this foreign Chinese herbal medicine get due attention. In many Ming and Qing dynasty pharmacological literature after Li Shizhen, accounts of dill began to appear more frequently.
In mainland China, people often use dill to induce milk to women in the nursing period, or to treat pediatric gastrointestinal discomfort. A little more sophisticated, the seeds of dill will also be fried and ground, mixed with warm rice wine into a paste, while hot to apply to the painful place, three times a day to change the medicine, the same day can effectively alleviate the symptoms. In addition, the fried dill fruit is served with warm wine, which can treat the pain of the waist sprain. Uighurs in Xinjiang also use dill seeds to treat a variety of diseases.
Modern medicine proves that the refined dill essential oil has soothing and astringent properties and anti-spasmodic properties, can be used to treat a variety of diseases, and can effectively eliminate tension, calm emotions, relieve headaches and dizziness, reduce the phenomenon of excessive tension and constant sweating. It is important to note that due to the harsh chemical content of dill, the direct use of dill essential oil in pregnant women and infants should be avoided.