77 herbs cooked with around the world that are still unfamiliar in Korea.
Photo: Carl Axel Magnus Lindman · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
오이스터 리프
A thick, fleshy leaf that grows on pebbly beaches. One bite and a salty taste of the sea spreads through your mouth, which is why it's called "oysters made of vegetables." Some people say it tastes like oysters, and others say its chewy texture is what resembles them.
More about Oyster leaf →A different herb is picked each time you open the page.
Based on open-field growing in Korea. Only herbs with a checked source are shown.
Photo: Carl Axel Magnus Lindman · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A thick, fleshy leaf that grows on pebbly beaches. One bite and a salty taste of the sea spreads through your mouth, which is why it's called "oysters made of vegetables." Some people say it tastes like oysters, and others say its chewy texture is what resembles them.
Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Chew one of these little yellow flower buds and the tip of your tongue tingles and buzzes, like eating popping candy, and your mouth fills with saliva. The feeling can last up to about 10 minutes.
Photo: Eric Hunt · CC BY 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Rub a leaf gently between your fingers and you get a strong smell of ripe pineapple. The bright red flowers that bloom from late summer into autumn are edible too, with a sweet fruity taste and a hint of mint.
Photo: WayneRay · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The name may be unfamiliar, but it's a close relative of Korean mint (baechohyang, or bang-a leaf). The leaves have a gentle, sweet licorice-like aroma, and the purple flowers are edible too.
Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its soft, fern-like leaves have a sweet licorice aroma. Cooked with tart fruit, it softens the sourness, so you can use much less sugar.
Photo: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Just rub a leaf and your hands pick up a strong lemon scent. In France it's called verveine and is popular as an after-dinner tea. Add it to ice cream for a fresh lemon-scented dessert.
Photo: Dmitry Makeev · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like clover, but one bite is as sour as lemon and apple peel. It belongs to the same group as the creeping wood sorrel (gwaengi-bap) often seen by Korean roadsides.
Photo: W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb with blue star-shaped flowers and fuzzy leaves. Surprisingly, the leaves and flowers taste like cucumber. In fact, they contain the same compound that gives cucumber its aroma.
Photo: Otto Wilhelm Thomé · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its round, toothed leaves taste gently of cucumber. In Britain, people sometimes float these leaves on a gin and tonic instead of cucumber. It belongs to the same group as Korea's mountain great burnet (oipul).
Photo: 4028mdk09 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It tastes like celery made several times stronger. Just a few leaves fill a whole pot with celery aroma. In Germany it's called "Maggi herb" because its taste resembles Maggi seasoning.
Photo: AnRo0002 · CC0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like parsley but is much finer and lacy. It has a gentle hint of licorice and is called "gourmet's parsley." It's a basic herb in French cooking.
Photo: AnRo0002 · CC0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like spinach, but one bite is surprisingly sour, like lemon. In France, a cream sauce made with these leaves served with salmon is a classic dish.
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its big heart-shaped leaves smell of root beer (an American soft drink), so it's called the "root beer plant." In Mexico, fish or cheese is wrapped in these large leaves and steamed.
Photo: Marco Schmidt [1] · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Plump green stems that grow on coastal mudflats. They're crunchy and salty like seawater. It's the same group as the plant known in Korea as hamcho, and Western chefs call it "sea asparagus" and cook with it.
Photo: Yummifruitbat · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its leaves and stems are covered in sparkling, clear droplets like grains of ice. Bite into it and the juice pops out, salty as if sprinkled with salt.
Photo: George Chernilevsky · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
You can eat the round, lotus-like leaves and the orange flowers whole. One bite and a mustard-like heat rises right up your nose. Pickle the unripe seeds in vinegar and they become "poor man's capers."
Photo: User:JoeCarrasco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
If you like cilantro, this herb will surprise you. It's like cilantro mixed with arugula's bitterness and a citrus note, and far more intense than cilantro. It's a must in cemita, a sandwich from Puebla, Mexico.
Photo: Filo gèn' · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its name and taste are similar to cilantro, but the aroma is several times stronger. The leaf edges are saw-toothed, so it's also called "sawtooth coriander." It's the long leaf served alongside Vietnamese pho.
Photo: en:user:Peon374 · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its Korean name means "Vietnamese coriander," but it's a completely different plant from coriander. It has a cilantro-like aroma plus a slightly numbing heat. Some people who dislike cilantro say this one is easier to eat.
Photo: Björn Traeger · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Freshly picked leaves have almost no smell. But leave them to wilt for a few hours and a sweet scent of vanilla and freshly cut hay appears. In Germany, people drink wine flavored with this herb on May 1.
Photo: Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
One of the secret ingredients behind gin's distinctive aroma. Its hollow green stems, candied in sugar, become emerald-colored sweets that once decorated European cakes. It belongs to the same group as the Korean medicinal herb danggwi.
Photo: manfred.sause@volloeko.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It has flowers like yellow marigolds, and its leaves have a sweet licorice aroma. It's grown as a substitute for French tarragon, which doesn't grow well in hot places. The Aztecs used its leaves to flavor cocoa drinks.
Photo: HelloMojo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Leaves from a tree that grows in Australian rainforests. Rub one and a strong lemon scent bursts out. It's known as the plant with the most lemon-scent compound (citral) in nature. Aboriginal Australians have eaten it for a very long time.
Photo: Dalgial · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The plastic green leaf in sushi lunch boxes is actually imitating this shiso leaf. It's the same species as Korean perilla (kkaennip), just a different variety. It has a refreshing aroma like a mix of mint, lemon and basil.
Photo: Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Young leaves from the same tree as chopi, the spice added to Korean loach soup. Chew a leaf and you get a fresh, yuzu-like aroma with a slight tingle on the tongue. In Japan, these leaves herald spring.
Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its Korean name, eoseongcho, literally means "fish-smelling herb." Rub the leaves and they really do smell fishy. In Korea it's mostly drunk as tea, but in Vietnam it's an herb eaten generously with wraps and noodles.
Photo: Zuhairali · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A long leaf called "the vanilla of Southeast Asia." It contains the compound behind the smell of freshly cooked jasmine rice and freshly baked white bread. Many Southeast Asian desserts are green because of this leaf.
Photo: Silverije · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Not the fig fruit, but the leaf. Walk past a fig tree in summer and you'll smell something sweet like coconut and vanilla. Ice cream made by steeping these leaves in cream is popular among chefs.
Photo: Robyn Jay from Sydney, Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A curious leaf made of two leaves joined end to end like an hourglass. Tear it and a strong aroma spreads, like freshly grated lime zest. That fresh aroma in Thai tom yum soup comes from this leaf.
Photo: SarKaLay စာကလေး · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Despite the name, these are leaves from a tree that has nothing to do with curry powder. Raw, they smell grassy, but the moment they hit hot oil, a nutty, fresh aroma bursts out. Most of the aroma of South Indian cooking comes from these leaves.
Photo: Francisco Manuel Blanco (O.S.A.) · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The aroma is so strong and unusual that the first time you smell it you may wonder, "People eat this?" In Mexico it's always added when cooking black beans. The name comes from the ancient Aztec language.
Photo: Emilia Murray · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
As the name suggests, it's a water plant that grows in rice paddies. Rub the leaves and you smell lemon and cumin (a curry spice) at the same time. It always tops the sour fish soup of southern Vietnam.
Photo: Luigi Rignanese · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Thin, long green stems hang like a beard, so in Italy it's called "monk's beard." It's crunchy with a slightly sour, salty taste. It's a prized vegetable that appears only briefly in spring.
Photo: ZooFari · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Purslane, pulled out as a weed from Korean fields and roadsides, is actually a salad ingredient in the West. Its plump leaves are crunchy like cucumber, sour like lemon and slightly salty.
Photo: User:Jymm · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb that grows on seaside cliffs, and it even appears in Shakespeare's King Lear. Picking it while hanging from cliffs was once a dangerous job. It's salty, with lemon and fennel aromas.
Photo: Joe Schneid, Louisville, Kentucky · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb with bright red flowers shaped like fireworks. Around the American Revolution, people who refused British tea are said to have brewed tea from its leaves. The red-flowered type smells similar to Earl Grey tea.
Photo: Yak · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Rub the dried leaves between your palms and you get a sweet aroma like maple syrup. In fact, compounds from this plant are used to make imitation maple syrup flavor. That subtle aroma in Indian butter chicken comes from these leaves.
Photo: Sten Porse · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its clusters of cream-colored flowers smell sweet, like a mix of honey, vanilla and almond. In medieval Europe these flowers flavored mead. Rub the leaves and they smell like a pain-relief patch, because of a compound related to aspirin.
Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust · CC BY 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb that's cool like mint, bitter, and smells like pine. Most of absinthe's green color comes from this herb. Its aroma is very strong, so only a little is used in cooking.
Photo: Johann Georg Sturm (Painter: Jacob Sturm) · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
In Germany it's called the "bean herb" (Bohnenkraut). There's a saying that adding it to beans brings them to life and turns a bean salad into something special. It's peppery, with a thyme-like aroma.
Photo: Challiyan at Malayalam Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The real star of pad kra pao (basil stir-fry with rice), a Thai street food. Unlike the basil we know, it has a sharp, spicy aroma like cloves. In India it's considered a sacred plant.
Photo: Agnes Monkelbaan · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
In spring, these leaves carpet the floor of European forests like a green rug. Rub a leaf and it smells strongly of garlic, but it's softer and fresher than garlic. Noma, the Danish restaurant, even makes capers from this plant.
Photo: Willow · CC BY 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its white flower clusters have a sweet scent like muscat grapes and vanilla. In Europe, a syrup drink made from these flowers is a symbol of summer. Korean mountains are home to a relative from the same group, the Korean elder (ttakchong-namu).
Photo: The original uploader was MPF at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Light green new shoots that sprout at the ends of spruce branches in spring. Taste one and it's surprisingly fresh and lemony. Chefs, bartenders and brewers look for them every spring.
Photo: Mariko GODA · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A relative of ginger, but instead of the root you eat the pinkish flower buds that rise from the ground. It's crunchy and fresh, with an aroma like a mix of ginger and green onion. In Korean cooking, myoga is sometimes threaded on skewers alternating with meat and pan-fried.
Photo: Johann Georg Sturm (Painter: Jacob Sturm) · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
In Tuscany, Italy, this herb is said to be a must when sautéing mushrooms. It tastes like mint, oregano and basil combined in one leaf. It grows wild in Italian fields.
Photo: Fagus · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like mint, but rub a leaf and a lemon scent rises up. It's one of the basic fresh herbs of Vietnamese cooking. It has lemon and mint aromas with a little heat.
Photo: John Moss · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Leaves of a rare tree from the Australian rainforest, with a strong, sweet aroma like licorice candy. The aroma is strong enough to use instead of star anise.
Photo: Melburnian · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Leaves from a tree in the mountains of Tasmania, Australia. Chew one and it's hot like pepper and makes your tongue numb. It's a pretty tree with red stems, and both the leaves and berries are used like pepper.
Photo: Kevin Thiele from Perth, Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A silvery shrub from the Australian desert whose leaves, as the name says, taste of salt. It used to be sheep feed, but now chefs use it instead of salt. In Australia, lamb raised on these leaves is a delicacy.
Photo: Ixitixel · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A seaside green that Captain Cook's crew are said to have eaten in 1770 to prevent scurvy. The leaves are covered in tiny droplet-like hairs. It's used like spinach but is slightly salty.
Photo: Kahuroa · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A heart-shaped leaf found only in New Zealand, and a relative of pepper. Chew it and it's bitter and peppery, and your mouth goes a little numb. In Māori tradition, leaves with holes chewed by caterpillars are considered better.
Photo: peganum · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A red-blotched leaf from New Zealand forests, so hot that it burns your mouth. It's said to be so hot that even deer won't eat it. In New Zealand it's a native spice used instead of pepper.
Photo: CostaPPPR · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
As the name says, a "bitter leaf." In Nigeria, the leaves are squeezed and washed several times to remove the bitterness, leaving only a gentle bitter note, and then cooked into soup. Sick wild chimpanzees have even been seen chewing these leaves.
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The fragrant leaf added at the end of Nigerian pepper soup. It's a kind of basil, with a rich aroma mixing clove and oregano.
Photo: Nathan FMAN · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb that's essential in niter kibbeh, the spiced butter that defines Ethiopian cooking. It smells like a mix of mint, basil and oregano, with a touch of lemon.
Photo: Kippi70 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The original plant behind za'atar, the famous Middle Eastern seasoning. It smells like oregano, thyme and marjoram combined. Many scholars think the "hyssop" in the Bible is this plant.
Photo: Kurt Stüber [1] · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A very bitter herb that was widely used in ancient Roman cooking but is now almost forgotten. In Italy its branches are put in grappa (grape brandy) for flavor, and in Ethiopia it's steeped in coffee.
Photo: Sonja Pauen · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It's called a bay leaf, but it's actually the leaf of a relative of the cinnamon tree. So instead of a bay aroma, it smells of cinnamon and cloves. The fragrance of Indian biryani comes from this leaf.
Photo: Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It's called oregano, but it's a completely different plant from the oregano sprinkled on pizza. It's a relative of lemon verbena, so its oregano aroma comes mixed with a lime-like freshness.
Photo: Eigenmusic · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its leaves are thick like a succulent and covered in soft fuzz. Rub just one leaf and you get a strong aroma like a mix of oregano, thyme and sage. In Thailand it's called "tiger's ear."
Photo: Andrey Zharkikh from Salt Lake City, USA · CC BY 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The single blade of grass inside a bottle of the Polish vodka Żubrówka is this grass. Dried, it has a sweet aroma of vanilla and freshly cut hay. It's named bison grass because European bison love it.
Photo: peganum · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A thin-leaved relative of papalo. It's like cilantro with lemon and anise, plus a touch of pine and mint. In Oaxaca, Mexico, it's an herb people always eat when spring comes.
Photo: Ethel Aardvark · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Chew one leaf and sweetness spreads as if you ate sugar. The Guaraní people of South America have called this leaf "sweet herb" and added it to drinks for more than 1,500 years.
Photo: Sam P Mathew · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A shiny, heart-shaped leaf that's a relative of pepper. In Vietnam, seasoned beef is rolled in these leaves and grilled over charcoal, and in Thailand various ingredients are wrapped in the leaf and eaten in one bite.
Photo: Martin Cilenšek · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Water pepper, common by the water in Korea too, is an herb that's always served with sweetfish (ayu) in Japan. Chew a leaf and it has a sharp heat like wasabi.
Photo: Alpsdake · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its leaves grow in threes, so in Japanese it's called "three leaves" (mitsuba). It has a refreshing aroma like a mix of celery and parsley, and a sprig always goes on top of Japanese steamed egg custard.
Photo: Simon A. Eugster · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The leaf of turmeric, the yellow spice used in curry. When rice cakes are wrapped in these big leaves and steamed, the whole kitchen fills with fragrance. The real aroma of Malaysian rendang curry also comes from this leaf.
Photo: Vitaium · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A curious herb: basil that smells of lemon. It's a hybrid of common basil and American basil. Soaked in water, its seeds swell up like frog spawn, and they're sometimes added to drinks.
Photo: Qwert1234 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The leaves and flowers of wasabi, the kind served on sushi, are edible too. They're milder than the root but have a sharp kick like mustard greens. Wasabi flowers are a prized ingredient that blooms only briefly in spring.
Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A small weed that grows in hard soil in parking lots and by roadsides. Rub the flowers and they smell strongly of pineapple. It's a relative of chamomile, so tea brewed from the flowers is a sweet chamomile tea that smells of pineapple.
Photo: Photographer and uploader was Hajotthu at de.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Before hops were used, this herb gave medieval European beer its bitterness and aroma. Rub a leaf and your hands smell fragrant for hours. Some breweries in Belgium and Britain still make beer with it.
Photo: tato grasso · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A vegetable the Romans brought to Britain, later forgotten when celery took over. It has an unusual taste: celery and parsley with a myrrh-like aroma. It still grows on British coasts and at old monastery sites.
Photo: Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Just brushing against it stings, but the moment it's blanched the sting disappears and it becomes a tasty green, richer than spinach. In Europe, people make a green nettle soup when spring arrives.
Photo: Nicolas Ramirez · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A geranium whose leaves smell like a mix of rose and lemon when gently rubbed. Line a cake tin with these leaves and bake, and the cake picks up a gentle rose scent.
Photo: Lazaregagnidze · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like mint, but its leaves smell of lemon when you touch them. Bees love its flowers, so it got a name meaning "honeybee" in Greek. It's also used in the French liqueur Chartreuse.
Photo: Carl Axel Magnus Lindman · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A thick, fleshy leaf that grows on pebbly beaches. One bite and a salty taste of the sea spreads through your mouth, which is why it's called "oysters made of vegetables." Some people say it tastes like oysters, and others say its chewy texture is what resembles them.
Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Chew one of these little yellow flower buds and the tip of your tongue tingles and buzzes, like eating popping candy, and your mouth fills with saliva. The feeling can last up to about 10 minutes.
Photo: Eric Hunt · CC BY 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Rub a leaf gently between your fingers and you get a strong smell of ripe pineapple. The bright red flowers that bloom from late summer into autumn are edible too, with a sweet fruity taste and a hint of mint.
Photo: WayneRay · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The name may be unfamiliar, but it's a close relative of Korean mint (baechohyang, or bang-a leaf). The leaves have a gentle, sweet licorice-like aroma, and the purple flowers are edible too.
Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its soft, fern-like leaves have a sweet licorice aroma. Cooked with tart fruit, it softens the sourness, so you can use much less sugar.
Photo: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Just rub a leaf and your hands pick up a strong lemon scent. In France it's called verveine and is popular as an after-dinner tea. Add it to ice cream for a fresh lemon-scented dessert.
Photo: Dmitry Makeev · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like clover, but one bite is as sour as lemon and apple peel. It belongs to the same group as the creeping wood sorrel (gwaengi-bap) often seen by Korean roadsides.
Photo: W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
An herb with blue star-shaped flowers and fuzzy leaves. Surprisingly, the leaves and flowers taste like cucumber. In fact, they contain the same compound that gives cucumber its aroma.
Photo: Otto Wilhelm Thomé · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its round, toothed leaves taste gently of cucumber. In Britain, people sometimes float these leaves on a gin and tonic instead of cucumber. It belongs to the same group as Korea's mountain great burnet (oipul).
Photo: 4028mdk09 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It tastes like celery made several times stronger. Just a few leaves fill a whole pot with celery aroma. In Germany it's called "Maggi herb" because its taste resembles Maggi seasoning.
Photo: AnRo0002 · CC0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like parsley but is much finer and lacy. It has a gentle hint of licorice and is called "gourmet's parsley." It's a basic herb in French cooking.
Photo: AnRo0002 · CC0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It looks like spinach, but one bite is surprisingly sour, like lemon. In France, a cream sauce made with these leaves served with salmon is a classic dish.
Photo: Forest & Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its big heart-shaped leaves smell of root beer (an American soft drink), so it's called the "root beer plant." In Mexico, fish or cheese is wrapped in these large leaves and steamed.
Photo: Marco Schmidt [1] · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Plump green stems that grow on coastal mudflats. They're crunchy and salty like seawater. It's the same group as the plant known in Korea as hamcho, and Western chefs call it "sea asparagus" and cook with it.
Photo: Yummifruitbat · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its leaves and stems are covered in sparkling, clear droplets like grains of ice. Bite into it and the juice pops out, salty as if sprinkled with salt.
Photo: George Chernilevsky · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
You can eat the round, lotus-like leaves and the orange flowers whole. One bite and a mustard-like heat rises right up your nose. Pickle the unripe seeds in vinegar and they become "poor man's capers."
Photo: User:JoeCarrasco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
If you like cilantro, this herb will surprise you. It's like cilantro mixed with arugula's bitterness and a citrus note, and far more intense than cilantro. It's a must in cemita, a sandwich from Puebla, Mexico.
Photo: Filo gèn' · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its name and taste are similar to cilantro, but the aroma is several times stronger. The leaf edges are saw-toothed, so it's also called "sawtooth coriander." It's the long leaf served alongside Vietnamese pho.
Photo: en:user:Peon374 · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its Korean name means "Vietnamese coriander," but it's a completely different plant from coriander. It has a cilantro-like aroma plus a slightly numbing heat. Some people who dislike cilantro say this one is easier to eat.
Photo: Björn Traeger · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Freshly picked leaves have almost no smell. But leave them to wilt for a few hours and a sweet scent of vanilla and freshly cut hay appears. In Germany, people drink wine flavored with this herb on May 1.
Photo: Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
One of the secret ingredients behind gin's distinctive aroma. Its hollow green stems, candied in sugar, become emerald-colored sweets that once decorated European cakes. It belongs to the same group as the Korean medicinal herb danggwi.
Photo: manfred.sause@volloeko.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It has flowers like yellow marigolds, and its leaves have a sweet licorice aroma. It's grown as a substitute for French tarragon, which doesn't grow well in hot places. The Aztecs used its leaves to flavor cocoa drinks.
Photo: HelloMojo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Leaves from a tree that grows in Australian rainforests. Rub one and a strong lemon scent bursts out. It's known as the plant with the most lemon-scent compound (citral) in nature. Aboriginal Australians have eaten it for a very long time.
Photo: Dalgial · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The plastic green leaf in sushi lunch boxes is actually imitating this shiso leaf. It's the same species as Korean perilla (kkaennip), just a different variety. It has a refreshing aroma like a mix of mint, lemon and basil.
Photo: Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Young leaves from the same tree as chopi, the spice added to Korean loach soup. Chew a leaf and you get a fresh, yuzu-like aroma with a slight tingle on the tongue. In Japan, these leaves herald spring.
Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Its Korean name, eoseongcho, literally means "fish-smelling herb." Rub the leaves and they really do smell fishy. In Korea it's mostly drunk as tea, but in Vietnam it's an herb eaten generously with wraps and noodles.
Photo: Zuhairali · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A long leaf called "the vanilla of Southeast Asia." It contains the compound behind the smell of freshly cooked jasmine rice and freshly baked white bread. Many Southeast Asian desserts are green because of this leaf.
Photo: Silverije · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Not the fig fruit, but the leaf. Walk past a fig tree in summer and you'll smell something sweet like coconut and vanilla. Ice cream made by steeping these leaves in cream is popular among chefs.
Photo: Robyn Jay from Sydney, Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
A curious leaf made of two leaves joined end to end like an hourglass. Tear it and a strong aroma spreads, like freshly grated lime zest. That fresh aroma in Thai tom yum soup comes from this leaf.
Photo: SarKaLay စာကလေး · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
Despite the name, these are leaves from a tree that has nothing to do with curry powder. Raw, they smell grassy, but the moment they hit hot oil, a nutty, fresh aroma bursts out. Most of the aroma of South Indian cooking comes from these leaves.
Photo: Francisco Manuel Blanco (O.S.A.) · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The aroma is so strong and unusual that the first time you smell it you may wonder, "People eat this?" In Mexico it's always added when cooking black beans. The name comes from the ancient Aztec language.
Photo: Emilia Murray · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
As the name suggests, it's a water plant that grows in rice paddies. Rub the leaves and you smell lemon and cumin (a curry spice) at the same time. It always tops the sour fish soup of southern Vietnam.
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Thin, long green stems hang like a beard, so in Italy it's called "monk's beard." It's crunchy with a slightly sour, salty taste. It's a prized vegetable that appears only briefly in spring.
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Purslane, pulled out as a weed from Korean fields and roadsides, is actually a salad ingredient in the West. Its plump leaves are crunchy like cucumber, sour like lemon and slightly salty.
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An herb that grows on seaside cliffs, and it even appears in Shakespeare's King Lear. Picking it while hanging from cliffs was once a dangerous job. It's salty, with lemon and fennel aromas.
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An herb with bright red flowers shaped like fireworks. Around the American Revolution, people who refused British tea are said to have brewed tea from its leaves. The red-flowered type smells similar to Earl Grey tea.
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Rub the dried leaves between your palms and you get a sweet aroma like maple syrup. In fact, compounds from this plant are used to make imitation maple syrup flavor. That subtle aroma in Indian butter chicken comes from these leaves.
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Its clusters of cream-colored flowers smell sweet, like a mix of honey, vanilla and almond. In medieval Europe these flowers flavored mead. Rub the leaves and they smell like a pain-relief patch, because of a compound related to aspirin.
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An herb that's cool like mint, bitter, and smells like pine. Most of absinthe's green color comes from this herb. Its aroma is very strong, so only a little is used in cooking.
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In Germany it's called the "bean herb" (Bohnenkraut). There's a saying that adding it to beans brings them to life and turns a bean salad into something special. It's peppery, with a thyme-like aroma.
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The real star of pad kra pao (basil stir-fry with rice), a Thai street food. Unlike the basil we know, it has a sharp, spicy aroma like cloves. In India it's considered a sacred plant.
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In spring, these leaves carpet the floor of European forests like a green rug. Rub a leaf and it smells strongly of garlic, but it's softer and fresher than garlic. Noma, the Danish restaurant, even makes capers from this plant.
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Its white flower clusters have a sweet scent like muscat grapes and vanilla. In Europe, a syrup drink made from these flowers is a symbol of summer. Korean mountains are home to a relative from the same group, the Korean elder (ttakchong-namu).
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Light green new shoots that sprout at the ends of spruce branches in spring. Taste one and it's surprisingly fresh and lemony. Chefs, bartenders and brewers look for them every spring.
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A relative of ginger, but instead of the root you eat the pinkish flower buds that rise from the ground. It's crunchy and fresh, with an aroma like a mix of ginger and green onion. In Korean cooking, myoga is sometimes threaded on skewers alternating with meat and pan-fried.
Photo: Johann Georg Sturm (Painter: Jacob Sturm) · Public domain · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
In Tuscany, Italy, this herb is said to be a must when sautéing mushrooms. It tastes like mint, oregano and basil combined in one leaf. It grows wild in Italian fields.
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It looks like mint, but rub a leaf and a lemon scent rises up. It's one of the basic fresh herbs of Vietnamese cooking. It has lemon and mint aromas with a little heat.
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Leaves of a rare tree from the Australian rainforest, with a strong, sweet aroma like licorice candy. The aroma is strong enough to use instead of star anise.
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Leaves from a tree in the mountains of Tasmania, Australia. Chew one and it's hot like pepper and makes your tongue numb. It's a pretty tree with red stems, and both the leaves and berries are used like pepper.
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A silvery shrub from the Australian desert whose leaves, as the name says, taste of salt. It used to be sheep feed, but now chefs use it instead of salt. In Australia, lamb raised on these leaves is a delicacy.
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A seaside green that Captain Cook's crew are said to have eaten in 1770 to prevent scurvy. The leaves are covered in tiny droplet-like hairs. It's used like spinach but is slightly salty.
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A heart-shaped leaf found only in New Zealand, and a relative of pepper. Chew it and it's bitter and peppery, and your mouth goes a little numb. In Māori tradition, leaves with holes chewed by caterpillars are considered better.
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A red-blotched leaf from New Zealand forests, so hot that it burns your mouth. It's said to be so hot that even deer won't eat it. In New Zealand it's a native spice used instead of pepper.
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As the name says, a "bitter leaf." In Nigeria, the leaves are squeezed and washed several times to remove the bitterness, leaving only a gentle bitter note, and then cooked into soup. Sick wild chimpanzees have even been seen chewing these leaves.
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The fragrant leaf added at the end of Nigerian pepper soup. It's a kind of basil, with a rich aroma mixing clove and oregano.
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An herb that's essential in niter kibbeh, the spiced butter that defines Ethiopian cooking. It smells like a mix of mint, basil and oregano, with a touch of lemon.
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The original plant behind za'atar, the famous Middle Eastern seasoning. It smells like oregano, thyme and marjoram combined. Many scholars think the "hyssop" in the Bible is this plant.
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A very bitter herb that was widely used in ancient Roman cooking but is now almost forgotten. In Italy its branches are put in grappa (grape brandy) for flavor, and in Ethiopia it's steeped in coffee.
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It's called a bay leaf, but it's actually the leaf of a relative of the cinnamon tree. So instead of a bay aroma, it smells of cinnamon and cloves. The fragrance of Indian biryani comes from this leaf.
Photo: Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada · CC BY 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
It's called oregano, but it's a completely different plant from the oregano sprinkled on pizza. It's a relative of lemon verbena, so its oregano aroma comes mixed with a lime-like freshness.
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Its leaves are thick like a succulent and covered in soft fuzz. Rub just one leaf and you get a strong aroma like a mix of oregano, thyme and sage. In Thailand it's called "tiger's ear."
In Mexico, not only the avocado fruit but also the leaves are used as a seasoning. They go into soups like bay leaves and have a sweet licorice and anise aroma. But only leaves from Mexican-type trees can be eaten.
Photo: Andrey Zharkikh from Salt Lake City, USA · CC BY 2.0 · Original file (Wikimedia Commons)
The single blade of grass inside a bottle of the Polish vodka Żubrówka is this grass. Dried, it has a sweet aroma of vanilla and freshly cut hay. It's named bison grass because European bison love it.
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A thin-leaved relative of papalo. It's like cilantro with lemon and anise, plus a touch of pine and mint. In Oaxaca, Mexico, it's an herb people always eat when spring comes.
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Chew one leaf and sweetness spreads as if you ate sugar. The Guaraní people of South America have called this leaf "sweet herb" and added it to drinks for more than 1,500 years.
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A shiny, heart-shaped leaf that's a relative of pepper. In Vietnam, seasoned beef is rolled in these leaves and grilled over charcoal, and in Thailand various ingredients are wrapped in the leaf and eaten in one bite.
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Water pepper, common by the water in Korea too, is an herb that's always served with sweetfish (ayu) in Japan. Chew a leaf and it has a sharp heat like wasabi.
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Its leaves grow in threes, so in Japanese it's called "three leaves" (mitsuba). It has a refreshing aroma like a mix of celery and parsley, and a sprig always goes on top of Japanese steamed egg custard.
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The leaf of turmeric, the yellow spice used in curry. When rice cakes are wrapped in these big leaves and steamed, the whole kitchen fills with fragrance. The real aroma of Malaysian rendang curry also comes from this leaf.
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A curious herb: basil that smells of lemon. It's a hybrid of common basil and American basil. Soaked in water, its seeds swell up like frog spawn, and they're sometimes added to drinks.
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The leaves and flowers of wasabi, the kind served on sushi, are edible too. They're milder than the root but have a sharp kick like mustard greens. Wasabi flowers are a prized ingredient that blooms only briefly in spring.
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A small weed that grows in hard soil in parking lots and by roadsides. Rub the flowers and they smell strongly of pineapple. It's a relative of chamomile, so tea brewed from the flowers is a sweet chamomile tea that smells of pineapple.
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Before hops were used, this herb gave medieval European beer its bitterness and aroma. Rub a leaf and your hands smell fragrant for hours. Some breweries in Belgium and Britain still make beer with it.
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A vegetable the Romans brought to Britain, later forgotten when celery took over. It has an unusual taste: celery and parsley with a myrrh-like aroma. It still grows on British coasts and at old monastery sites.
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Just brushing against it stings, but the moment it's blanched the sting disappears and it becomes a tasty green, richer than spinach. In Europe, people make a green nettle soup when spring arrives.
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A geranium whose leaves smell like a mix of rose and lemon when gently rubbed. Line a cake tin with these leaves and bake, and the cake picks up a gentle rose scent.
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It looks like mint, but its leaves smell of lemon when you touch them. Bees love its flowers, so it got a name meaning "honeybee" in Greek. It's also used in the French liqueur Chartreuse.