{"id":70,"date":"2009-06-30T02:45:01","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T09:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/2009\/06\/30\/monday-magnoliophyte-cilantro\/"},"modified":"2009-06-30T02:45:01","modified_gmt":"2009-06-30T09:45:01","slug":"monday-magnoliophyte-cilantro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/2009\/06\/30\/monday-magnoliophyte-cilantro\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Magnoliophyte: Cilantro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Coriander (cilantro) is a member of the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), which was the first flowering plant family recognized by botanists and the first subjected to systematic study. The members of this family are numerous, with nearly 300 genera, and include such common herbs and vegetables as carrots, celery, fennel, parsley, parsnips, anise, cumin, coriander, and dill. Any member can be easily recognized as such by the tendency for the flowers to be arranged in <strong>umbels<\/strong>, which are clusters of flowers in which each flower stalk grows from the same point at the top of the stem (like the ribs of an inside-out umbrella). The flowers cluster into a disk, promoting their presence to pollinators as a group instead of individually. The leaves of these plants are also rather distinctive, being greatly lobed near the base of the plant and becoming more feathery and fractal near the apex.<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/imgs\/cilantro.jpg\" alt=\"Cilantro\" \/><br \/>\nEudicots; Apiales; Apiaceae; <em>Coriandrum sativum<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Coriander itself is used both for its leaves, commonly called cilantro or Chinese parsely, and for its seeds, which are ground into a spice or used whole in pickling, sausages, rye bread, and other foods. The leaves contain chemicals related to phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), an organic compound that is perceived as very bitter or essentially tasteless depending on the genetic makeup of the tester (this was one method of paternity testing before DNA sequencing). For this reason, some people find cilantro to be soapy or bitter tasting, and avoid consumption of many Mexican, Chinese, and Southeast Asian dishes that contain large amounts of the herb. I myself am insensitive to it (about 70% of people can taste PTC), and so love to use it.<\/p>\n<p>Below is a recipe, courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.revealedsingularity.net\/\">Philip Kahn<\/a>, that uses cilantro to make a Mediterranean pasta salad:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1\/2 bunch chopped cilantro leaves (about 1 cup)<\/li>\n<li>4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and cubed<\/li>\n<li>6 oz. crumbled feta cheese<\/li>\n<li>1 cup olive oil<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp. paprika<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp. Lawry&#8217;s Seasoning Salt<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp. garlic powder<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp. onion salt<\/li>\n<li>1 package (12 oz.) farfalle pasta<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cook pasta according to package. Drain and let cool with a bit of olive oil for coating. Mix the rest of the ingredients and chill in refrigerator 30 minutes. Mix with chilled pasta and serve. Great for hot summer days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coriander (cilantro) is a member of the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), which was the first flowering plant family recognized by botanists and the first subjected to systematic study. The members of this family are numerous, with nearly 300 genera, and include such common herbs and vegetables as carrots, celery, fennel, parsley, parsnips, anise, cumin, coriander, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum-immortal.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}