Curcuma

The curcuma (Curcuma longa) is a long-lived rhizomateuse herbaceous plant of the family of the Zingibéracées originating in the south of the Asia. Sometimes called saffron of the Indies, its name comes in fact from the Arab word كركم, khourkoum . It is largely cultivated in India but also, with a less degree, in China, with Taiwan, the Japan, the Myanmar, in Indonesia and Africa.

It known in Occident since Antiquity and is described by Dioscoride in its Materia Medica .

Use

Food

One uses the rhizome dried and reduced powders some like spice and it usually enters the mixtures of spices of the Indian Cuisine, in particular the Curry. To prepare the powder, it is necessary to make boil the rhizome, remove its skin, make it dry with the sun, then to reduce it out of powder. It then lost the three quarters of its weight. Its savor is peppered and very aromatic.

Dye

The curcuma was also largely used like Teinture yellow orange - for the costume saffron of the Sâdhu S or the Buddhist monks for example - before the invention of the chemical dyeings.

It is at the origin of the industrial yellow food dye E100 (curcumin).

Pharmacopeia

The curcuma is used as traditional drug for the treatment of the skin diseases, action checked in India in the treatment of the Gale.

It is used for a very long time as anti-inflammatory drug by the ayurvedic Médecine Indian.

The Cancer of the colon is statistically less present in the surfaces where it regularly is consumed. The active ingredient of the curcuma, the Curcumin, is the object of active research. It is an effective agent of Chémoprévention of colorectaux cancers at the Rongeur S (clinical trials at volunteers in progress).

Curcumin could also help to stimulate the cells of the Immune system which absorb the Protéine S of the brain which mark the Maladie of Alzheimer.

Local names

Chinese: jianghuang 姜黄; Tibetan: yung-Ba, sga-ser - To the Japan says " Ukon" (ウコン). With the Meeting, one very often confuses it with the saffron. Indeed, it is called commonly the saffron country and it is very much used in the local kitchen. The saffron, it, are practically not used there.

In the anglophone countries more commonly, one calls it turmeric .

See too

Internal bonds

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