Full Arctander text
#### Fenugreek.
From a far Eastern bean comes a seed which has attracted the attention of perfumers and flavorists increasingly during the past three decades. **Trigonella**** ****Foenum**** ****Graecum**** **is a sizeable herb, probably originated in Iran or India, now widely cultivated in Arabia, China (Kwangsi and Yunnan), Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Morocco, and Tunisia.
The uncrushed seed emits only a very faint odor. However, the comminuted seed releases an intensely sweet, spicy, protein like, "soup-like" and caramellic odor. Steam distillation of the seeds has been tried although with very poor yields of oil. Extraction with volatile hydrocarbon solvents or with weak alcohol will yield products of various appearance, odor and flavor. The hydro alcoholic extract is very dark and resinous in appearance; it has an intensely sweet, rootlike odor. The petroleum ether extract of the crushed seeds is lighter of color but less sweet of odor. The characteristic odor of **Fenugreek Extract **is a celery-like spicyness, a coumarinic-balsamic sweetness and an intense, almost sickening and strong, lovage-like or opopanax-like note of extreme tenacity. The diffusive power of the odor of this material is usually underestimated by far. Traces of fenugreek extract can ruin a perfume or a flavor if the extract is used in "wrong" combinations; but equally minute concentrations of fenugreek extract can do wonders in certain compositions: Oriental bases, aldehydic-herbaceous topnotes, chypres, fougères, lavender compositions, new mown hay bases, etc.
**Fenugreek Extract **is very useful in flavors such as maple (for maple syrup, "burnt sugar", caramel notes, etc.), vanilla compositions, butterscotch, rum (excellent fixative for the low-boiling esters), licorice, pickles, cheese, seasonings, etc. The extract blends excellently with cyclotene (2-hydroxy-3-methyl-2-cyclopenten-1-one), heptalactone, maraniol (4-methyl-7-ethoxy-coumarin), anethole, safrole, undecanolide, etc. and with celery seed oleoresin, lovage
oil or oleoresin, licorice extract, etc. The crushed **Fenugreek**** ****Seed**** **is used in certain types of the so-called Indian curry powder, see **Curcuma Oleoresin**.
The annual world production of **Fenugreek Seed **runs into thousands of tons but only a fraction hereof ends up in perfumes and flavors. The seed serves as a cattle feed on account of its content of proteins and vegetable (fatty, fixed) oil. The seed can be deodorized for this purpose. If cows are fed with fenugreek seed which has not been deodorized, the cows' milk will smell and taste of fenugreek.
The suggested use-level of a hydro-alcoholic **Fenugreek**** ****Extract**** **in flavors is 0.20 to 1.00 mg%. For straight "maple" flavoring the figure will be somewhat higher. The **Minimum**** ****Perceptible**** **of this type of extract is about 0.10 mg%.