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Borage (Borago officinalis) L.

Synonyms

AlbanianLapush, Shaja mjekësore
Arabicلسان الثور, حمحم
لِسَان الْثَوْر, حِمْحِم
Lisaan ath-Thaur, Lisan al-Thaur, Himhim, Hamham
BasqueBerroya, Borrai
BelarusianАгурочнік, Агурэчнік
Aguročnik, Agurečnik
BretonKaol-garv
BulgarianПореч
Porech
CatalanBorratja
Chinese
(Cantonese)
琉璃苣 [lauh lèih geuih]
Lauh leih geuih
Chinese
(Mandarin)
琉璃苣 [liú íi jù], 玻璃苣 [bō lí jù]
Liu li ju, Bo li ju
CroatianBorač, Boražina, Volujsko uho
CzechBrotnák, Bořeč
DanishHjulkrone
DutchBernagie, Borage, Komkommerkruid
EnglishBeebread, Bugloss, Burrage
EsperantoBorago
EstonianHarilik kurgirohi
Farsiگاو زبان
Gavzaban
FinnishRohtopurasruoho, Purasruoho, Kurkkuyrtti
FrenchBourrache officinale
GaelicBorrach, Borraist, Borraigh
GermanBorretsch, Gurkenkraut
GreekΜποράντσα, Βόραγο
Borantsa, Vorago
Hebrewבוראג, בורג
Borag
HungarianBorrágófű, Borágó, Borvirág
IcelandicHjólkróna
ItalianBorragine
Japaneseボリジ, ルリヂサ
Boriji, Ruridisa
Kannadaದೊಡ್ಡಪತ್ರೆ
Doddapatre
Korean보리지
Poriji
LatvianĀrstniecības gurķenes, Gurķumētras
LithuanianAgurklė
MalteseFidloqqom
NorwegianAgurkurt
PolishOgórecznik lekarski
PortugueseBorragem
ProvençalBourragé, Bourraio
RomanianLimba mielului
RussianОгуречная трава, Огуречник аптечный
Ogurechnaya trava, Ogurechnik aptechnyj
SerbianВолујско уво, Борач, Боражина
Volujsko uvo, Borač, Boražina
SlovakBorák lekársky, Borák
SlovenianBoraga, Boreča
SpanishBorraja, Borrega, Rabo de Alacrán
SwedishGurkört
Tamilஅகும்பை
Agumbai (Borago indica)
TurkishHodan, Ispıt, Sığırdili, Zembil çiçeği
UkrainianОгіркова трава
Ohirkova trava
VietnameseChi mồ hôi
Chi mo hoi
WelshTafod-yr-ych
Yiddishבוריטש
Buritsh
Borago officinalis: Borage leaf
Borage leaf
Borago officinalis: Borage flower close-up
Borage flower close-up
Used plant part

Fresh leaves. The blue flowers are some­times tried as a food colour­ant (see also annatto).

Plant family

Boraginaceae (borage family)

Sensory quality

Borage’s taste is rather weak and very similar to fresh cucumber. In addition, the leaves provide a unique, crunchy texture.

Main constitu­ents

The leaves con­tain an es­sen­tial oil (below 0.1%) domi­nated by 2,6 nona­dienal, which is also a main com­ponents in cu­cumber aroma (cu­cumber al­dehyde).

Borago officinalis: Borage (flowers in detail)
Borage flowers (close-up)

Several non-volatile com­ponents have also been identified, among those the toxic pyrrol­izidine alkaloids inter­medine, lycops­amine, amabiline and supinine. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are extremely common in the Boragina­ceae family, are powerful hepato­toxins that cause severe liver dam­age on chronic in­gestion, often with lethal out­come.

Although the total pyrrol­izidine alkaloids con­centra­tion in borage is ex­treme­ly small (around 10 ppm in the dried herb), it has been argued that borage is an unsafe herb when used in folk medi­cine; the risks asso­ci­ated with casual culinary usage are probably negli­gible. In the flowers, thesinine (a non-toxic pyrrol­izidine alkaloid) has been found.

The fixed oil obtained from borage seeds (borage oil, starflower oil) is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, e. g., γ‑linol­enic acid (20%). Pyr­rolizi­dine alkaloids seem to occur only in negligible traces in this oil, if at all.

Origin

The plant grows wild in Central and Eastern Europe; it origin is probably the Western Mediterranean.

Borago officinalis: Albino borage
White-flowered borage

www.ruehlemanns.de

Borago officinalis: Borage (flowering plant)
Borage (flowering plant)
Borago officinalis: Borage plant
Borage plant
Etymology

The name borage can, by way of French and Spanish, be traced back to Medieval Latin borrago. The latter name is generally accepted to have Arabic origin; it has been proposed to derive it from Andalusian Arabic abu buraq father of sweat (standard Arabic abu araq [أبو عرق]) or from abu huras father of roughness. In the first case, the motive would be the use of bor­age lea­ves in dia­phoretic medi­cines, in the sec­ond case the rough leaf sur­face.

Many Euro­pean lan­guages have names related to borage: French bour­rache, German Bor­retsch, Serbo-Croatian borač [борач], Basque borrai, Hungarian borrágófű, Greek borantsa [μποράντσα], and Bulgarian porech [пореч]. Also the Hebrew name of borage, borag [בוראג], is part of that series; I suspect it is a rather young loan.

Despite the Arabic origin of borage, modern Arabic has no related plant name. Instead, borage is often named himhim [حمحم], a name shared with related rough-leaved plants like bugloss (Echium) and oxtongue (Anchusa). A more specific Arabic name is lisan athaur [لسان الثور], which transparently means tongue of the bull (lisan [لسان] tongue and thaur [ثور] bull), obviously in reference to the thick, uneven leaves. The Semitic root TWR bull is remarkably similar to many Indo–European terms for bull, e. g., archaic English steer (Old English steor), German Stier, Latin taurus and Greek tauros [ταῦρος]. The reconstructed Proto-Indo–European form, (s)taur-, is likely a loan from an ancient Semitic tongue.

The charac­teristic cu­cumber aroma of borage gives rise to names like Swedish gurk­ört, German Gurken­kraut, Dutch kom­kommer­kruid, Finnish kurkku­yrtti, Bela­rusian aguročnik [агурочнік] and Russian ogurechnaya trava [огуречная трава], all meaning cucumber herb; con­cerning the second elements in these names, see mugwort (-wort, -wurz, -ört) and savory (-kraut, -kruid). Evidently, also the Baltic names (Lithuanian agurklė, Latvian gurķumētras, and Estonian kurgirohi) contain a cucumber element.

Borago officinalis: Borage inflorescence
Borage flowers
Borago officinalis: Borage flower
Borage flower

It is quite amaz­ing that Ger­manic lan­guages have two different names for cucumber, which despite their similarity cannot be proven to be related.

  1. English cu­cum­ber and Dutch kom­kommer can be traced back to Latin cucumis cu­cum­ber; that name can­not be explained further, but is has sur­vived into modern botanical nomen­clature, where the veg­etable cu­cum­ber is known as Cucumis sativus. Compara­tively few Romance lan­guages have con­served the Latin word, e. g., French con­combre and Catalan co­gombre. In contrast, Italian cetriolo cu­cum­ber derives from Latin citrullus watermelon, which in turn might be related to citrus (see lemon), and the Iberic name of cu­cum­ber, pepino, relates to Latin pepo pumpkin.

  2. On the other hand, German Gurke or Nor­we­gian agurk derive from Late Greek an­gou­rion [ἀγ­γού­ριον] cu­cum­ber, which either be­longs to Old Greek aoros [ἄωρος] green, im­mature, or is a loan from a doubious Persian angarah melon. The Greek word was trans­ferred to many Slavonic lan­guages (Czech okurka, Russian ogurets [огурец], Polish ogórek) and entered Modern German as a loan from Polish; from there, it spread to many tongues of Northern Europe: Swedish gurka, Norwegian agurk, Lithuanian agurkas, Latvian gurķis and Estonian kurk. English gherkin also belongs to that group.

Quite confusingly, the German name Gurkenkraut is also used for dill, not because dill smells like cucumber (which it doesn’t), but because German cooks almost automatically use dill to flavour cucumber dishes.

Selected Links

Ilkas und Ullis Kochecke: Borretsch (rezkonv.de via archive.org) Saskatchewan Herb and Spice Association: Borage Herbs by Linda Gilbert: Borage Zur Etymologie von katalanisch borratja, borraina (www.uni-tuebingen.de) Rezept: Frankfurter Grüne Sauce (www.garten-literatur.de) Rezept: Frankfurter Sauce aka Grüne Sauce (www.bluephod.net) Recipe: Frankfurter Gruene Sauce (Frankfurt Green Sauce) (recipesource.com)


Borago officinalis: Borage young pink flower
Young flowers of borage can be pink and become blue only in the course of their individual flowering period. Other plants form flowers which are blue from the beginning.

© Franz Rojnik

Borage is a culinary herb mostly popular in Central Europe. Its light cucumber fragrance is mostly suited for salads prepared from raw vegetables; sometimes, borage is used to make puréed soups. Boiling, frying and simmering will, however, quickly destroy most of its characteristic fragrance.

In many regions of Germany, sauces prepared from herbs are very popular in spring time; many of the recipes contain borage. Most known, even outside Germany, is the Green Sauce made in Frankfurt (Frankfurter Grüne Sauce, called grie soß in the local dialect). The traditional recipe calls for exactly seven herbs: parsley, chervil, chives, cress, sorrel (Rumex acetosa), burnet (Sanguisorba minor) and borage; lemon balm, though not traditional, is a good addition. The Green Sauce is served to boiled or braised meat, boiled young potatoes, fish and vegetables.

In the most ancient recipes, the sauce is prepared with herbs and vegetable oil only, which must have resulted in a mayonnaise-like product; today, diet variants are much more popular, employing diary products (yoghurt, crème fraîche or sour cream). In any case, boiled egg yolks are mandatory; the sauce is then seasoned with vinegar or lemon juice, white pepper, optionally puréed garlic and a dash of mustard paste.

There are countless variants of this sauce, most of which are loathed by Frankfurt’s true inhabitants. Adding pickled cucumbers is quite popular, and more herbs may be employed, of which dill, lovage and tarragon are most common. Similar recipes, probably predecessors, are called sauce vert in France; the recipe does also have some feature in common with Ligurian pesto (see basil).



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