Cilantro ingredient can remove foul odor of 'chitlins'

American Chemical Society ^ | November 13, 2010 | Unknown

[decimon]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2010 — With chitlins about to make their annual appearance on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day menus, scientists have good news for millions of people who love that delicacy of down-home southern cooking, but hate the smell. They are reporting the first identification of an ingredient in cilantro that quashes the notoriously foul odor of chitlins — a smell known to drive people from the house when chitlins are cooking. Their report appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Yasuyoshi Hayata and colleagues note that chitlins — hog large intestines — are infamous for their foul smell, which is reminiscent of the waste material that once filled the intestine. However, many people enjoy the taste of the southern delicacy. When boiled or fried, chitlins are most popular in the United States during the winter holidays, from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. However, hog large intestine also is a year-round staple in the cuisines of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia.

Hayata's group knew that cooks long have used fresh cilantro, an herb also known as coriander or Chinese parsley, to mask the unpleasant smell of certain foods, as well as add flavor. They previously showed that cilantro could help to remove the fecal or sewage-like odor from chitlins. In the new research, they set out to discover the identity of the deodorizing chemical compounds in cilantro.

The scientists treated samples of hog large intestine with cilantro extracts of different concentrations. A panel of human sniffers identified the concentrations that were most effective in reducing the odor. Using high-tech instruments, the scientists then isolated the main deodorizing ingredients in the most effective extracts. The scientists identified several cilantro ingredients that appeared to suppress the foul odor of chitlins. One of the substances with the tongue-twisting name of (E,E)-2,4-Undecadienal had a flowery fragrance that seemed to completely erase the odor. That substance worked at concentrations as low as 10 parts per billion — an equivalent to about 10 drops of substance in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

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ARTICLE # "Identification of (E, E)-2,4-Undecadienal from Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) as a Highly Effective Deodorant Compound against the Offensive Odor of Porcine Large Intestine"

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf102297q

CONTACT: Yasuyoshi Hayata, Ph.D. Meiji University Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Phone: (81) 044-934-7812 Fax: (81) 044-934-7812 Email: yhayata@isc.meiji.ac.jp

The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

[doorgunner69]

Old Chinese proverb:

You cook chit, it smell like chit!

[LiberConservative]

There is an ethnic food many in my German heritage family eats to this day: Braunschweiger. I loved it as a kid until I learned that it is really “liver sausage”. I still eat hot dogs because I refuse to know what goes in them. You can’t have my beloved hot dog with sauerkraut.

[Pontiac]

Braunschweiger. I loved it as a kid until I learned that it is really “liver sausage”.

Me Too.

It is an excellent sandwich to have with a beer on a hot summers evening.

What most people don’t know that the Braunschweiger is the lower class version of pate de foie gras (fatty goose liver sausage made by force feeding geese corn) made from beef liver.

[reg45]

There are some people who have a gene that makes cilantro taste soapy. You must be one of them.

[mrsmith]

Now you tell me... I just checked- all the seeds are gone!
Well, next year I’ll know.
It is a nice decorative plant: easy to grow with long-lasting flowers.
Grew sage (which I have plenty of uses for) with them and the smell from the two was very pleasant.